LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. _____ Copyright I\ T o.. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



_ 




Dr. E. A. SHELDON. 



THE CONTEIBUTIOB" 



THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL 



EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS IN 
THE UNITED STATES 



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HOLLIS 



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APR 2 91898 J 

BOSTON, U.S.A. r^0/ 

D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS 



1898 



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2nd COPY, TW0^ r ' 

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Copyright, 1898, 
By D. C. Heath & Co. 



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Ttpogbaphy bt C. J. Peters <fc Son, 
Boston. 

Plimpton IBresg 

H. M. PLIMPTON & CO., PRINTERS <fc BINDERS, 
NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A. 



PREFACE. 



The matter contained in these pages was originally 
projected as a thesis for a degree in the Department of 
Pedagogy of the University of Wisconsin. Upon the 
suggestion of friends the work has been enlarged with 
the hope that it may prove of some value to a future 
history of American pedagogy. Incidentally it is a 
small tribute to the life of a man whom to know was 
an education. 

Many have assisted in its preparation, and the writer 
takes this opportunity of making the following acknowl- 
edgments : — 

To the late Dr. E. A. Sheldon for access to many 
original sources possessed only by him, many of which 
were prepared at great sacrifice of time especially for 
this work, and for constant inspiration and encourage- 
ment extending over a term of years of helpful associa- 
tion. 

To Dr. J. W. Stearns (Director of the School of Edu- 
cation, University of Wisconsin), Professor Earl Barnes, 
and his wife Mrs. Mary Sheldon Barnes, for careful read- 
ing of the manuscript and fruitful suggestions. 

To Professor Wm. Phelps of St. Paul, Superin- 

iii 



IV PREFACE. 

tendent L. H. Jones of Cleveland, Professor M. V. 
O'Shea (Professor of the Science and Art of Teaching 
in the University of Wisconsin), Colonel F. W. Parker 
of the Chicago Normal School, Mrs. Mary Howe Smith 
Pratt of Gill, Mass., Professor William M. Aber, and 
his wife Mrs. Mary Ailing Aber, for very detailed and 
helpful contributions. 

To Professor I. B. Poucher, Professor Charles S. 
Sheldon, Professor Amos W. Farnham, and other mem- 
bers of the faculty of the Oswego Normal School, for 
substantial assistance. 

To Hon. Charles R. Skinner, New York, for permission 
to use extended extracts from his address at Oswego. 

To D. Apple ton and Co. and E. L. Kellogg & Co. of 
New York for kind permission to use cuts furnished by 
them. 

To the publishers D. C. Heath & Co. of Boston for 
courtesies extended. 

To many teachers, Oswego graduates, and others, for 
cheerful replies to letters of inquiry. 

Since Chapter V. was written, Principal F. B. Pal- 
mer of the Fredonia (N. Y.) State Normal School, has 
pointed out to me that the Fredonia Normal School 
was reported by the superintendent of public instruc- 
tion of the State of New York as having a kinder- 
garten in connection with its training department a year 
earlier than Oswego. The priority given to Oswego 
was based on two letters received from Dr. Sheldon, 
and on the fact that both schools are listed in the Re- 



PREFACE. 



port of the United States Commissioner of Education 
as having kindergartens for the first time in 1881. 



The tables in the Appendices do not lay claim to 
absolute accuracy ; but they were compiled with some 
care, and will not be without value as evidence for 
some of the statements made in the text. 

A. P. HOLLIS. 
Madison, Wis., December, 1897. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Peeface iii 

CHAPTER I. 
Ameeican Pedagogy peevious to the Oswego Move- 
ment 5 

CHAPTER II. 
Oswego's Innovation 15 

CHAPTER III. 
The Speead of the Oswego Idea 26 

CHAPTER IV. 
Application of the Oswego Idea in Noemal Schools . 39 

CHAPTER V. 
Latee Movements at Oswego 76 

CHAPTER VI. 
Peesonalities in the Oswego Movement 80 

CHAPTER VII. 
exteacts from addresses 112 

Memoeial Addeesses and Resolutions 131 

Appendices 153 

vii 



THE OSWEGO 1TOBMAL SCHOOL. 



CHAPTER I. 

AMERICAN PEDAGOGY PREVIOUS TO THE OSWEGO 

MOVEMENT. 

The important place in the history of American ped- 
agogy to which the Oswego Normal School, founded by 
Dr. E. A. Sheldon, is entitled, rests upon its claim to 
be the first institution to introduce in a practical and 
noteworthy manner the Pestalozzian principles of in- 
struction into the American common school. In order 
to understand the significance of the Oswego move- 
ment in its relations to pedagogical forms already ex- 
isting, it will be serviceable to take a short survey of 
the development of American pedagogy previous to 
1860, the year when the Oswego teachers first received 
instruction in Pestalozzian principles. 

One of the first things to be seen from such a survey 
is, that while the Pestalozzian principles had long been 
heard of and talked of in different sections of this 
country, they had taken no hold upon American 
schools. At the generous invitation of William Mc- 
Clure, an American who paid a visit to Pestalozzi's 



b THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

school, Joseph Neef, one of Pestalozzi's co-workers, 
came to this country, and attempted to introduce the 
master's ideas in a private school in Philadelphia ; and 
as early as 1809 Neef published a book entitled, 
Sketch of a Plan and Method of Education. But after a 
few years of struggle the enterprise failed. From that 
time on, men like William C. Woodbridge, Horace 
Mann, William E. Russell, Henry Barnard, Charles 
Brooks, and Calvin Stowe, some of whom had visited 
the Prussian schools at various times, through press 
and platform, urged reform of existing methods, and 
the adoption of systems of instruction more or less in 
accord with Prussian ideals. 1 Educational journals like 
the American Journal of Education, Annals of Educa- 
tion, and the Massachusetts Common School Journal, 
frequently published accounts of the work being done in 
European schools which had adopted the Pestalozzian 
methods ; and yet the evidence shows that up to 1860 
Pestalozzian principles in America remained largely a 
matter of lectures and books among the initiated few. 
To the rank and file of the teachers of the land, Pesta- 
lozzi was but a name, or an eccentric personality. "Not- 
withstanding the diffusion of the principles of Object 
Teaching in this country during that period," says Mr. 
Calkins, in an address upon the History of Object Teach- 

1 For accounts of these reformers and others, see Rise and Growth 
of the Normal School Idea in the United States, hy Professor J. P. 
Gordy, Bureau of Education, 1891. 

See also Analytical Index to Barnard's American Journal of Educa- 
tion, issued hy Bureau of Education, 1892. 



PREVIOUS AMERICAN PEDAGOGY. 7 

ing, "its practice died out through the want of teachers 
trained in the system and its methods." 1 

A second important observation to be noted is, that 
at this time (1860) the Normal School had become the 
highest and most promising expression of pedagogical 
thought in America. The monitorial system of Lan- 
caster's had run its course. Before the establishment 
of the first American Normal School at Lexington, 
Mass., in 1839, it had ceased to exist. It failed be- 
cause it assumed that students could teach well with- 
out a special preparation for teaching. The Normal 
School succeeded because it assumed nothing, took no 
risks ; for each student-teacher must not only be con- 
siderably ahead of those he expected to teach, but must 
demonstrate that he could teach before he left its halls. 
It marked nothing less than the inevitable victory of 
science over chance. The discussions aroused by the 
monitorial system all over the country were of great 
value in interesting the people in methods of element- 
ary education, and its very failure pointed out the way 
to success. 

The teachers' classes in academies had been tried 
and found wanting. Those classes had attained espe- 
cial prominence in New York, where from 1827 to 1844 
they were the chief means provided in New York State 
for the training of teachers. They never gave satis- 

1 "History of Object Teaching," an address delivered by N. A. Calkins 
in 1861. Published in Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. 
xii., p. 639. 



8 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

faction ; and Horace Mann, appreciating his own Mas- 
sachusetts Normal Schools, well expressed the chief 
objection to them. " So far as the plan is concerned, 
the striking point of dissimilarity is, that in New York 
the teachers' department is grafted upon an Academy ; 
it is not the principal but an incidental object of the 
institution; it is not primary, but secondary; it does 
not command the entire and undivided attention of the 
instructors, but shares that attention with the general 
objects for which the Academy was founded." J 

Many of the teachers' classes were discontinued in 
1844, with the establishment of the Albany Normal, 
from which time they have ceased to occupy so promi- 
nent a part in the training of teachers. 2 

The decline of these two sturdy institution's left the 
field clear for the Normal School. The first Normal 
School in America possessed the advantage of having 
good models. Its type had existed from the beginning 
of the century in Prussia, and it thus came to us no un- 
fledged birdling ; it needed only judicious adaptations 
to American soil to demonstrate its fitness to survive. 
It started out with every distinctive feature of the mod- 
ern Normal School, embracing: — 

1 Quoted from Horace Mann by Professor J. P. Gordy in Rise and 
Growth of the Normal School Idea. 

2 In 1889 a law was passed in New York which transformed the train- 
ing-classes in academies from the control of the Regents of the Univer- 
sity to that of the superintendent. This was done to unify the professional 
work of the schools, — the training-classes being classed as elementary 
training-schools, leading up to the Normal Schools proper. 

See Report of Superintendent Draper for 1890, p. 22. See Gordy's 
Rise and Growth, etc., p. 39. 



PREVIOUS AMERICAN PEDAGOGY. 9 

(1.) A department of Academic Instruction, 

(2.) Theory of Teaching, 

(3.) School of Practice. 
The Academic department always remained a strong 
one ; the department of Theory of Teaching made seri- 
ous efforts to impart correct methods for teaching a 
wide range of subjects. Unfortunately for the early 
development of a definite and systematic pedagogy, no 
detailed and personal knowledge of the great improve- 
ments which Prussia had made in her methods of teaching 
guided those attempts of our Normal School pioneers ; 
and consequently the methods given were frequently 
but crude applications of principles of mental growth, 
only vaguely conceived and not philosophically system- 
atized. 1 No mention is made in available accounts of 



1 In referring to the establishment of the New Britain (Conn.) Nor- 
mal School, Hon. David N. Camp, State Superintendent of Instruction, 
said in his report for 1860 : — 

" When the Normal School was organized . . . only two States, Mas- 
sachusetts and New York had established Normal Schools. No well- 
defined principles of organization or methods of instruction and training 
had been published, as adapted to the schools of this country." 

A few years later, while in attendance at a convention of educators 
held at Oswego, Hon. David Camp told the convention that he had 
visited schools in all of the Eastern States, also in the principal cities 
from Maine to Missouri. He had also visited schools in Canada, and in 
all he had sought for something good to take back to his own State ; ' ' 
"but" he added, "during all of those visits, I have never found the 
principles of education so simplified and systematized — crystallized as 
it were — as in the schools of the city of Oswego. I came here to learn ; 
and I shall go back to New England, and tell with gladness what my 
eyes have seen and my ears heard." 

Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. xii., p. 646. 



10 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

these early Normal Schools of any distinct and radical 
advance on existing methods. Object- teaching as a 
general method, resting on universal and fundamental 
laws of mental life, was certainly not worked out in the 
early Normal Schools. The third department — the 
School of Practice, or Model School — maintained a 
checkered existence ; indeed, the one at Lexington 
after a time suffered a serious decline. As a rule, how- 
ever, the model school was considered an essential piece 
of apparatus for a Normal School, but its possibilities 
were not appreciated. The classes were sometimes ab- 
surdly small ; and before 1860 no Normal School had 
a model school containing all the grades of the public 
schools, and approaching in numbers a system of city 
schools ; l and so the opportunities for training in execu- 
tive force, in discipline, and in planning for the exigen- 
cies of a city school, were often denied the student 
teachers. 

The second Normal School to be established in Amer- 
ica was opened at Barre, Mass., in the autumn of 1839. 
It led an uneventful career, with the exception that at 
one time it apparently came near being the pioneer in 
introducing object-teaching into the schools; for we are 
told in an address delivered by Hon. J. W. Dickinson, 
that " The Westfield 2 Normal School was the first to 



1 The Model School of the New Britain Normal, over which the 
enlightened Dr. Henry Barnard had presided, contained, in 1860, 500 
children, and was divided into four grades. 

2 The Barre Normal School was moved to Westfield in 1841. 



PREVIOUS AMERICAN PEDAGOGY. 11 

show that all branches of learning may be taught by the 
same objective method." Unfortunately this valuable 
phase of the work at Westfield attracted little general 
attention ; and it remained for another Normal School 
in another State, at a considerably later date, to demon- 
strate on an important scale the great value of object- 
teaching in common-school branches. 

The third Normal School was that established at 
Bridgewater in 1840. A girls' Normal School was es- 
tablished in Philadelphia in 1844. In New York the 
Albany Normal was established in the same year. Dur- 
ing the fifties, Normal Schools were established in New 
Britain, Conn., Boston, Mass., Ypsilanti, Mich., Normal, 
111., St. Louis, Mo., Salem, Mass., Trenton, N. J., and 
Millersville, Penn. 

Some of these schools were not exclusively Normal 
Schools, but were conducted in connection with high 
schools. Such were the Boston Normal at Boston, the 
Girls' Normal School at Philadelphia, and the St. Louis 
Normal School at St. Louis, Mo. Such were also a 
Training-Class at Syracuse, 1 New York, a State Normal 
School and High School at Charleston, S. C, and a 
Girls' High and Normal School in the same city. At 
New Orleans there was a State and city Normal School. 
These Southern schools lived exceedingly precarious 
lives, and could scarcely be expected to develop foreign 



1 Started in 1855, according to Report of U. S. Com. of Ed. for 1889. 
For dates of others mentioned, see p. 962 of same report. 



12 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

pedagogical theories. There were three private Nor- 
mal Schools in Ohio, which seem to have lived a very 
quiet life. In Iowa a normal department was main- 
tained at the State University. 

It thus appears that up to 1860 there were some ten 
regular State Normal Schools in different parts of the 
country, and perhaps an equal number which had as- 
sumed the name, if not all the functions, of a Normal 
School. It is thus evident that the people had become 
convinced of the need for special training for teachers ; 
and though during the nineteen years succeeding the 
establishment of the first Normal School, only ten had 
been established and maintained by the States of the 
Union, still the experiments with Normal Schools had 
not proven failures ; and the substantial advantages they 
had furnished their graduates over untrained teachers 
were sufficient to lead educators to look to the Normal 
Schools for the more radical and far-reaching improve- 
ments which the great body of the common schools were 
still sadly in need of. 

The professional work in these early schools was very 
rudimentary. But a few good text-books of Theory 
of Teaching existed ; the best of them, Page's Theory of 
Teaching, did not appear until 1847. Hall's Lectures 
on School Keeping (1829), Abbott's Teacher (1833), 
and Emerson's School and the Schoolmaster, were among 
those most frequently used. None of these books, how- 
ever, had been the result of a close acquaintance with 
the new education in Prussia and Switzerland ; and most 




Professor HERMANN KRUSI. 



PREVIOUS AMERICAN PEDAGOGY. 13 

of them were general treatises upon school-keeping in 
all of its phases, especially the moral and disciplinary, 
precluding any detailed development of pedagogical 
principles or any systematic treatment of methods in 
specified subjects. Of more value to the investigating 
few, but of little interest to the toiling many, were such 
descriptive sketches of European methods as Professor 
Stowe's European Educational Institutes (1836), Dr. 
Julius' Outline of the Prussian System (1835), and Pub- 
lic Instruction in Prussia, Key and Biddle (1836). 
Dr. Henry Barnard was continuously trying to popular- 
ize these methods in his admirable journal. All of 
these articles did good service in letting us know that 
such things were doing, and in creating a desire in some 
circles to know more concerning the elaborate efforts 
of the old world teachers. They labored under the 
disadvantage of being too abstract to reach the average 
teacher. What was needed was a practical teacher 
versed in the methods at first hand, who could put 
the actual work in operation before the eyes and ears 
of the common school teacher. Such a teacher did not 
succeed in accomplishing this until the opening of the 
Oswego School. 

The soil was being prepared in other ways for a rev- 
olution. Teachers' Institutes and Associations, both 
State and National, had become popular and useful 
means of spreading pedagogical interest and knowledge 
in nearly all of the States. 

The American Institute of Instruction was organized 






14 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

as early as 1830 ; and for many years it was the prin- 
cipal focus of the progressive ideas of the country, 
and more especially of New England. Such men as 
Northend, Mann, Page, and Kriisi made its meetings 
the Mecca of thinking teachers. The National Educa- 
tional Association had just been organized (1858), and 
a few years later became an important instrument in 
aiding the almost universal adoption of the Oswego 
methods. There were numerous educational journals, 
the best of which have already been mentioned. 

Such, then, were the most obvious features in Ameri- 
can pedagogy at the time of the founding of the Os- 
wego School : the monitorial system had nourished and 
fallen ; the training-class idea in academies, as an equiv- 
alent of Normal School training, had been abandoned ; 
and the Normal Schools held the field, as the most 
promising exponents of professional training for teach- 
ers. They had not, however, during the nineteen years 
of their existence, effected any striking changes in the 
great body of the American common schools ; but their 
influence, combined with other forces such as the educa- 
tional associations and accounts of Prussian schools and 
schoolmasters, had made the time ripe for a popular 
reform in education which in a few short years swept 
through the common schools and the Normal Schools 
of the land. How this reform began will be traced in 
the next chapter. 



CHAPTER II. 

OSWEGO'S INNOVATION. 

" The history of the Normal School at Oswego, N.Y., 
constitutes an important chapter, not only in the history 
of the training of teachers, but in the history of the 
public schools of this country." So writes Professor 
Gordy in his Rise and G-rowth of the Normal School 
Idea in the United States. 

Referring to the Oswego Normal School, Dr. A. D. 
Mayo said in an address delivered before its alumni in 
1886, "It was reserved for New York, always the 
broadest and most catholic of the older States, to take 
up the work so well begun, and establish the final 
type of the American State Normal and City Training - 

School r 

How was it that the Oswego Normal School, with 
ten State Normal Schools already established in this 
country, some of them having twenty years the start, 
came to be the type of the American Normal School, 
— came to be regarded as the "Mother of Normal 
Schools " ? 

The answer to this question involves a rehearsal of 
some features of Oswego's history. At the first read- 
ing of the early history of the Oswego schools, one is 

15 



16 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

tempted to draw parallels between the lives of the 
founder of American Pestalozzianism and Pestalozzi 
himself. But upon reading further, especially of the 
steady and systematic evolution of the Oswego schools, 
one sees that parallels are devices too unyielding for 
purposes of history or biography. In one respect, how- 
ever, the life of Dr. E. A. Sheldon was fundamentally 
parallel with that of Pestalozzi — they both loved chil- 
dren, — which means that they were both endowed with 
sympathetic insight into what G. Stanley Hall would 
call the content of the child-mind. They were both 
philanthropists. The reader has only to recall Pesta- 
lozzi's school for poor children at Neuhof, and more 
especially the orphan school at Stanz, and Compare it 
with Mr. Sheldon's first "ragged school ... of one 
hundred and twenty wild Irish boys and girls of all 
ages, from five to twenty-one," to observe this simi- 
larity. " As my father went to his work of a morning, 
his warm-hearted Irish children trooped about him, 
seizing him by the fingers or by the coat-tails, wherever 
they could best catch hold, to the great amusement of 
the store-keepers and the passers-by." 1 This was surely 
thoroughly Pestalozzian in spirit. But in most other 
respects the two men were widely different. The 
young philanthropist at Oswego had spent three years 
at college, and possessed a sturdy common sense and 

1 Biographical sketch of E. A. Sheldon, by Mrs. Mary Sheldon 
Barnes, in Historical Sketches of the First Quarter Century of the 
Oswego Normal School. 



OSWEGO'S INNOVATION. 17 

executive force, the lack of which in Pestalozzi was the 
despair of his associates and patrons alike. The story 
of the development of the Oswego schools under Dr. 
.Sheldon's guidance, from the "ragged school" of 1848 
to the schools which made Oswego "a sort of Mecca 
for educators from nearly every loyal State," 2 has been 
well told by Professor Wm. M. Aber in the Popular 
Science Monthly for May, 1893. 

"As a superintendent of schools he (Mr. Sheldon) 
might have ended his days. ... As machines for 
securing from the pupils the learning memoriter of so 
many pages per day, and from the teachers, recitation, 
hearing, marking, and reporting, his schools were emi- 
nently successful. Teachers, pupils, and patrons neither 
knew nor desired anything better; but that sympathy 
with childhood which had led Mr. Sheldon into this 
work was not satisfied with these poor results. Five 
years of growing dissatisfaction with the current range 
of subjects and methods of instruction had culminated 
in a determination to prepare some books and charts for 
himself, when a visit to Toronto revealed the object of 
his search. He saw there in the National Museum, 
though not used in their own schools, collections of ap- 
pliances employed abroad, notably in the Home and 
Colonial Training-School in London. Evidently the 
seed sown by this school had not found in Toronto so 
good a soil as in the mind of this Yankee schoolmaster. 
From this visit he returned with the delight of a dis- 

1 Barnard's American Journal of Education, 1865. 



18 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

coverer of a new world, laden with charts, books, balls, 
cards, pictures of animals, building blocks, cocoons, 
cotton balls, samples of grain, and specimens of pottery 
and glass. 

In 1859 a new course for the primary schools was 
introduced at Oswego, in which lessons on form, color, 
size, weight, animals, plants, the human body, and 
moral instruction were prominent. But his teachers 
knew little about the subject-matter of such lessons, 
and less about methods of teaching them. The super- 
intendent was forced to become the teacher and trainer 
of his teachers. Without training himself, he sadly 
felt the inadequacy of his instructions, and determined 
to try to obtain a training-teacher." But to whom should 
he turn ? Here, again, the same love for direct contact 
with the original, which led the young superintendent 
to discard books and words for things and ideas in his 
revised course of study, now led him to reject all second- 
ary sources to be found in this country, and to. apply 
at once to the fountain-head of the Pestalozzian system. 
Pestalozzi himself had been dead for thirty-seven years ; 
but through his Toronto visit Dr. Sheldon learned of a 
flourishing institution established in London by Dr. 
Mayo, a friend and pupil of Pestalozzi's, and in which 
the Swiss reformer's methods had already received suc- 
cessful adaptation to English schools. 1 An illustration 
of the contagion of Dr. Sheldon's enthusiasm, as well 

1 For a full account of this interesting institution, see Barnard's 
American Journal of Education, vol. ix.,* pp. 429-487. 



OSWEGO'S INNOVATION. 19 

as of the love and confidence of his teachers, is the way 
in which he secured the finances to induce such a 
teacher to bring the new methods direct to this country. 
The Board of the Oswego Schools had magnanimously 
consented to the employment of such a teacher on con- 
dition of its not costing the city a single cent. Where- 
upon a number of the teachers gave up for one year 
half their salaries, and this, too, when their salaries 
ranged from only $300 to $500, and the new methods 
would increase rather than diminish the demands made 
upon each teacher's time and skill. This power to win 
and to hold the love and the confidence of his teachers 
and students has remained one great secret of Dr. Shel- 
don's success during the forty-nine years of his ministry 
in the cause of education. 

By this action of the teachers, Dr. Sheldon was en- 
abled to procure from the London institution the ser- 
vices of a woman of rare insight and pedagogical 
experience, Miss M. E. M. Jones. She was joined soon 
afterwards by Herman Kriisi, who had already taught 
and lectured in this country several years, and whose 
father had been one of Pestalozzi's most trusted helpers 
at Yverdun. A few years later Henry Barnard referred 
to Professor Kriisi as the man " who has stood nearer to 
the fountain-head of these methods, the personal teach- 
ings of Pestalozzi, than any living teacher among us." 
This prompt action of Dr. Sheldon's was Oswego's In- 
novation. Now began a series of experiments in objec- 
tive teaching which soon attracted the attention of the 



20 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

foremost educators of the country, and which undoubt- 
edly determined the subsequent character of elementary 
education in America, while at the same time they fur- 
nished to the Normal Schools concrete and definite 
realizations of principles which had long been the sub- 
ject of abstract discussion, or which at most had re- 
ceived but local and tentative applications. Professor 
Aber well says in his paper previously quoted : — 

" These new ideas were discussed by schoolmen be- 
fore New York State had a Normal School; and the 
school at Albany was founded and began the teaching 
of educational theories before the Oswego school was 
even thought of. What Dr. Sheldon did was to focus 
all these floating ideas on actual practice, and work out 
a systematic and rational expression of these theories 
for the daily- work of the schoolroom, — to do what 
other men were dreaming about." 

That the work thus started at Oswego was a real 
innovation, there is abundant evidence to show ; and 
many educators are united in ascribing to the Oswego 
School the credit of having first successfully introduced 
Pestalozzian principles into our common schools, and of 
having furnished the model organization of professional 
work after which nearly all Normal Schools, State and 
city, established since 1860, have been patterned. 

It is not the object of this sketch to attempt an ex- 
position of the Oswego methods. 1 That has long ago 

1 For clear expositions of the Oswego Methods, see Superintendent 
Sheldon's Reports of the Board of Education of the Oswego schools for 



OSWEGO'S INNOVATION. 21 

been rendered unnecessary. Not only has that been 
done in numerous books and pamphlets, but they can 
be witnessed doubtless in the reader's own city schools. 
Pestalozzian methods have been so widely taught in 
various normal and training-schools throughout the 
land, and so widely adopted in the common schools of 
all the States, that they have long since ceased to bear 
the name u Oswego Methods," which was so commonly 
applied to them twenty-five years ago. They may still 
be witnessed along their original lines at the State Nor- 
mal and Training-School at Oswego, N.Y., though here 
they are constantly undergoing modification and exten- 
sion as the experience of their originator has accumu- 
lated, and the sciences of Psychology and Pedagogy 
have advanced. It will be sufficient, before leaving this 
chapter, to exhibit in a few quotations how generally 
and how cheerfully Oswego's priority is acknowledged. 

Professor Gordy has made the most detailed study 
of Normal School History in the United States that 
has appeared in this country. His opinion of Oswego's 
place in the history of American pedagogy is quoted 
at the head of this chapter, as is also that of the emi- 
nent lecturer and writer upon educational subjects, Dr. 
A. D. Mayo. 

Farther along, Professor Gordy says of Dr. Shel- 

the ten years beginning in 1859; also his address on Object Teaching 
before the National Educational Association, published in Barnard's 
American Journal of Education, vol. xiv. (1864), p. 93; also Rise and 
Growth of the Normal School Idea, chap, iv., Professor J. P. Gordy. 
Other sources are mentioned in bibliography at close of this work. 



22 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

don's first course of study based upon Pestalozzian prin- 
ciples : — 

" I regret very much that the limits within which I am obliged 
to confine myself make it impossible for me to present this course 
of study without abbreviation. Marking as it does an epoch in 
the history of the public schools of this country, it well deserves 
the careful attention of those who are interested in our educa- 
tional history." 

And again on another page, — 

" The Normal School at Oswego certainly made some impor- 
tant advances. The objective method of teaching — the method 
which brings the mind of the pupil into direct contact with facts, 
and thus seeks to stimulate it to the proper kind of activity — 
first received its complete illustration in the practice school of 
this institution." 

Dr. Boone declares, in his History of Education in the 
United States, that, — 

"Miss Jones . . . shares with Superintendent Sheldon the 
credit of having systematically established the principle of object- 
teaching in this country." 

Professor S. S. Greene of Brown University, the well- 
known writer of text-books, in making a report on the 
Oswego Methods for a committee of educators in 1861, 
said for the committee, — 

" The examinations which it had been their privilege to wit- 
ness during the past week have impressed them with the convic- 
tion, that we are on the eve of a great and important revolution 
in the education of our country." 



OSWEGO'S INNOVATION. 23 

Professor M. V. O'Shea of the University of Buffalo, 1 
Buffalo, N.Y., expressed himself in a recent letter as 
follows : — 

"I have no hesitation in saying that the Oswego Normal 
School has had a greater beneficial influence npon elementary 
education than any other institution in the country." 

N. A. Calkins, author of Primary Object Lessons, in 
an address on The History of Object- Teaching, delivered 
in 1862, before an educational convention held at Os- 
wego, after words of commendation of the work he saw 
at Oswego, said, — 

"Such were the efforts for the first systematic introduction 
of Object-Teaching into the United States; and the honor of 
this achievement is due to the city of Oswego, her earnest su- 
perintendent, E. A. Sheldon, Esq., and her progressive Board 
of Education. . . . To any one who may desire to see the prac- 
tical operations of Object-Teaching, and the best system of 
elementary instruction to be found in this country, let me say, 
make a visit to Oswego." 

Dr. W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of 
Education, thus expressed himself on the occasion of 
Oswego's quarter centennial anniversary : — 

" I went on a pilgrimage to the shrine at Oswego, and saw some 
of the best work done there by Dr. Sheldon and Miss Cooper that 
I had ever seen." 2 



1 Now of the University of Wisconsin (School of Education). 

2 Quoted by Mrs. Delia Lathrop Williams in a paper on "The In- 
fluence of the Oswego State Normal School in the West." Published in 



24 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

And so also A. J. Rickoff, late superintendent of the 
schools at Cleveland, Ohio : — 

" In response to your request that I state what I know of the 
influence of the Oswego Normal School, I have to say that to it 
we owe the immediate impulse and the direction of the reform 
methods of instruction which is now in progress in the schools of 
the United States." 

The following generous expression from Colonel 
F. W. Parker speaks for itself : — 

Dear Sir, — 

In answer to your circular of Dec. 21, allow me to say that in 
my experience as a teacher, Superintendent of Schools, and Prin- 
cipal of the Chicago Normal School, I place the Oswego Normal 
School as first in its influence upon the education of this country. 
. . . Oswego, too, occupies the place of a pioneer in the new 
education ; it had the honor to begin object-teaching in 1861, 
and from crude beginnings has steadily worked onward and 
upward to better things. There are other normal schools which 
have had a great influence upon education, but I must place the 
influence of the Oswego Normal School as first among them all. 
Its principal, Dr. E. A. Sheldon, is a saint in all that pertains 
to the development of human souls. 

Very truly yours, 

Francis W. Parker. 

In barest outline, the innovation at Oswego in its 
earliest stage may be conveniently separated into five as- 
pects, — first, the great emphasis placed upon the study 
of the mental life of the children; second, the detailed 

Historical Sketches of the Oswego State Normal and Training-School 
(1887). 



OSWEGO'S INNOVATION. 25 

and elaborate applications made of Pestalozzian prin- 
ciples throughout the separate subjects of an extended 
course of study ; thirds the elevation of the model school 
into its rank as an indispensable laboratory for teachers 
and students-in-training and its expansion into a com- 
plete graded city school system ; fourth, the great im- 
portance given to Nature Study ; fifth, the zeal for 
the propagation of the new methods, which early caused 
it to assume the function of a national Normal School. 
This last point will be discussed in the next chapter, 
under the head of The Spread of the Oswego Idea. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SPREAD OP THE OSWEGO IDEA. 

The Oswego Training-School formally opened in May, 
1861. In that year most of its pupils were the teachers 
of the Oswego schools. Before the close of the year 
Superintendent Sheldon had become convinced that now 
without doubt he had made no mistake in placing his 
hope for the emancipation of his school-children in the 
Pestalozzian disciples. The new methods proved them- 
selves to be based upon laws of the human mind which 
were as deep and as broad as the human race ; they were 
thus, except in minor particulars, independent of local 
environment, were as completely applicable to the 
American as to the German mind, to the children of 
Boston as to those of Oswego. Teachers, children, and 
parents rejoiced at what they saw. The innovation 
meant a good deal more than a substitution of object 
lessons for text-books ; it meant a complete change of 
front of the schoolmaster to the child. The child was 
no longer regarded as a refractory little animal to be 
forced into the harness, fit or misfit ; nor were his little 
members of body and mind brought by weary months 
of relentless pressure to fill out the casts prepared from 
aforetime by the elders ; on the contrary, the school- 

26 










Principal ISAAC B. POUCHER 
(Successor to Dr. E. A. Sheldon). 



THE SPREAD OF THE OSWEGO IDEA. 27 

master became the learner, following and guiding the 
happy child by turns, adapting his own stiff nature to 
childhood's freedom, to its curious wonder at Nature's 
secrets, to its love of play, and demand for unconven- 
tional exercise. The parents testified at the end of the 
year that the children no longer dreaded school, they 
could not be kept from it. It was the dawn of child- 
hood's day in America. The kindergarten after this 
found easy admission into the hearts of the American 
public. It was not altogether a new idea. 

Dr. Sheldon and his associates longed to see these 
changes working their beneficent results throughout 
the schools of our country. With this end in view, in 
December, 1861, he sent invitations to a number of 
prominent educators in various parts of the country to 
come and see for themselves the work doing at Oswego, 
that the teachers of the country might have an authori- 
tative judgment concerning the new system. A num- 
ber of the gentlemen invited accepted the invitation, 
among whom were Professor Wm. F. Phelps, principal of 
the State Normal School at Trenton, N. J. ; David N. 
Camp, Superintendent of Schools in Connecticut, and 
principal of the State Normal School ; D. H. Coch- 
rane, principal of the State Normal School at Albany, 
N. Y. ; Miss L. E. Ketchem, Superintendent of the 
School of Practice in the State Normal School at 
Bloomington, 111. These educators spent three days 
in listening to the exercises in the Oswego Schools. 
Professor Phelps was appointed chairman of a special 



28 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

committee to prepare the report. This report was 
exhaustive and discriminating, and it constitutes a 
most important document in the history of Ameri- 
can pedagogy. It was the first noteworthy instru- 
ment in the spread of the Oswego Idea. Its hearty 
commendations represented the views of scholars from 
widely different sections of the country, and reached 
the attention of many whom the- annual reports of Dr. 
Sheldon had not reached. 

A closing extract from the report will show the 
nature of its conclusions : — 

1. That the principles of that system are philosophical and 
sound ; that they are founded in, and are in harmony with, the 
nature of man, and hence are best adapted to secure to him such 
an education as will conduce in the highest degree to his welfare 
and happiness, present and future. 

2. That the particular methods of instruction presented in the 
exercises before us, as illustrative of these principles, merit and 
receive our hearty approbation, subject to such modification as 
experience and the characteristics of our people may determine to 
be wise and expedient. 

Resolved, That this system of primary instruction, which sub- 
stitutes in great measure the teachers for the book, demands in its 
instructors varied knowledge and thorough culture ; and that at- 
tempts to introduce it by those who do not clearly comprehend 
its principles, and who have not been trained in its methods, can 
only result in failure. 1 

1 For a full copy of this report, which gives detailed accounts of many 
of the object lessons, see Barnard's American Journal of Education, vol. 
xii. (1862), p. 605. 



THE SPREAD OF THE OSWEGO IDEA. 29 

Some of the letters received by Dr. Sheldon from 
some of the gentlemen who could not attend the con- 
vention throw so much light upon the state of educa- 
tion at the time, and the way in which the new methods 
were received, that I may be pardoned for inserting one 
or two. Notice how cogently Hon. J. D. Philbrick, then 
Superintendent of Schools of Boston, states the reasons 
for the former failures attending attempts at teaching Pes- 
talozzian principles in this country. He wrote in part : — 

" I entertain a high appreciation of the value of the Pestaloz- 
zian principles of primary education which have been so success- 
fully introduced into the schools of your city from the Training- 
School in London, by your efficient Superintendent, Dr. E. A. 
Sheldon. I regard the proposed exhibition in Oswego as highly 
important, inasmuch as it will doubtless afford a better opportu- 
nity than has ever hitherto been enjoyed in this country, of witness- 
ing the results of instruction on the Pestalozzian plan of developing 
the faculties by means of lessons on objects, animals, plants, form, 
size, number, color, place, and drawing, together with various phys- 
ical exercises. I shall look for the report of the able committee 
on the subject with much interest. This movement will also be 
useful in directing the attention of educators more especially to 
the defects of primary education, which are more grave, more 
numerous, and more difficult to remedy, than those of any other 
department. 

" I sympathize with those who are endeavoring to diffuse more 
just views among the people respecting the nature and objects of 
elementary education, and I would give them my co-operation 
and support. Still, I feel that the greatest instrumentality for 
the improvement of primary education, and that on which we 
must mainly rely, is the professional training of teachers. Our 
theories may be sound, but they cannot work out themselves. 



30 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

The Pestalozzian principles have long been familiar to the leading 
educators in this country ; and yet they have made little progress in our 
primary schools, for the want of teachers competent to apply them in 
practice. Not but that the teachers are well educated ; but they 
have not had the advantages of a professional training-school, so 
that they undertake their work with every preparation but that 
most of all needed. 

" It is upwards of thirty years since efforts were made to engraft 
the Pestalozzian principles upon the Boston system of primary 
instruction. Josiah Holbrook, A. B. Alcott, Professor William 
Russell, Joseph Ingraham, and others labored earnestly in the 
cause. In the Journal of Education, edited by Professor Russell, 
and published in Boston in 1829, we find some of the ablest arti- 
cles on the subject. Holbrook's apparatus and specimens of 
natural history were placed in some of our primary schools ; and 
indeed, at that time, and for a considerable period afterwards, 
a cabinet was considered an indispensable part of a primary school 
apparatus. But after a time the Object -Teaching died out, be- 
cause the teachers were not trained in the system. In our recent 
efforts to revive the system to some extent, I find that where the 
teacher is not interested in it, the results are far from satisfactory. 
But the same is true, indeed, with every branch. 

" With the best wishes for the success of your exhibition, I am, 

sir, 

Yours most truly, 

John D. Philbrick." 

Similar letters 1 of interest and commendation were 
received from Dr. Henry Barnard, Hon. B. G. Northrop 

1 A number of these letters are printed in Superintendent Sheldon's 
Ninth Annual Report to the Board of Education of Oswego. These re- 
ports are a mine of information regarding the new methods. They contain 
many full reports of lessons given, examinations conducted, and clear 
and detailed discussions of the Pestalozzian principles and their adap- 



THE SPREAD OF THE OSWEGO IDEA. 31 

of Massachusetts, and other gentlemen prominent in 
educational affairs in different parts of the country. 
Dr. Sheldon wrote in his report for 1862 : — 

" During the past year hundreds of letters have been received 
from every portion of the country, many of them of the most 
nattering character, showing a deep interest in these methods of 
instruction. It is evidently taking a deep hold of the educational 
mind of this country." 

Students not living in Oswego were admitted to the 
Training-School at its inception; and in the following 
year one finds two of the graduating-class hailing from 
Massachusetts, two from Connecticut, one from Ver- 
mont, two from Michigan, and others from different 
parts of New York State. There were twenty-three in 
this second graduating-class; nineteen of these taught 
outside of Oswego ; seventeen of the nineteen in other 
States, — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, West 
Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, 
Georgia, Mississippi, and Ohio. As will be shown far- 
ther along, this steady stream of migration of Oswego 
graduates into the States, especially the Western States, 
continued unabated for a series of years and constitutes 
the most important means by which Oswego ideas 
spread throughout the country in what seems an incred- 
ibly short space of time. The demand which thus called 
for recruits to go east and west on missions of peace, 

tations to American schools. But they are getting scarce, and it is to 
be hoped they will not be allowed to go out of print. 



32 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

speaks most eloquently of the great interest the Ameri- 
can people took in the improvement of their common 
schools at a time when the imperative demand for re- 
cruits in another army, whose mission was grim war, 
made neglect of education a natural and pardonable 
thing. 

Before following this migration with any detail, how- 
ever, it will not be out of place to notice an episode 
which shows that the path of the reformer is seldom 
without its thorns, but which also shows that truth in 
the end only gains wider recognition by encountering 
opposition. 1 

Dr. H. B. Wilbur little thought, when, in a meeting 
of the New York State Teachers' Association held at 
Rochester in 1863, he denounced the Oswego novelties, 
that his name was to designate, in the history of the 
Oswego Idea, one of the chief agents in securing a na- 
tional official indorsement still more complete and far«- 
reaching than the school had yet received. And yet 
such was the game fate played him ; for the next year 
at the meeting of the National Educational Association, 
upon his delivering a similar invective, that body ap- 
pointed a committee of distinguished educators to make 
a thorough examination of the system which could in- 
spire such spirited censure. On the committee were 
Professor S. S. Greene, Professor in Brown University; 

1 Oswego System of Instruction, by Dr. H. B. Wilbur, before tbe 
National Educational Association. Publisbed in Barnard's American 
Journal of Education, vol. xv. (1865), p. 189. 



THE SPREAD OF THE OSWEGO IDEA. 33 

J. L. Pickard, Superintendent of Chicago schools ; J. D. 
Philbrick, Superintendent of Boston schools ; David N. 
Camp, State Superintendent of schools in Connecticut ; 
R. Edwards, President of the State Normal School, 
Normal, 111. ; C. L. Pennell, St. Louis, Mo. ; and Barnas 
Sears, D.D., of Providence, R.I. On behalf of the com- 
mittee, Professor Greene spent a week at Oswego, and 
in 1865 read a notable report before the Harris burg 
meeting of the Association, which was published by the 
Association in a pamphlet of thirty-one pages. It is to 
be reckoned as the second great document in the history 
of the new education in this country. It was listened 
to, of course, by educational leaders from all sections of 
the country. The report is fundamental and philosoph- 
ical, and forms a remarkably clear exposition of the 
mental facts upon which the new education is based. 
It was the proper antidote for the kind of destructive 
criticism indulged in by Dr. Wilbur. 

The committee set before itself three problems : — 

1. What place do external objects hold in the acqui- 
sition of knowledge ? Are they the exclusive source of 
our knowledge ? 

2. So far as our knowledge is obtained from external 
objects as .a source, how far can any educational pro- 
cesses facilitate the acquisition of it? 

3. Are the measures adopted at Oswego in accord- 
ance with the general principles resulting from these 
inquiries ? 

The nature of the first two questions necessitated a 



34 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

large part of the report being given over to philosophi- 
cal discussion concerning the validity of the Pestalozzian 
principles. This discussion performed the important 
service of scattering those metaphysical doubts which 
arise naturally when a new system of thought is pre- 
sented to the mind. It also gave primary methods a 
more dignified aspect, because they were now seen by 
educators at large to be based on thoroughly sound 
philosophical principles, and to be advocated by men 
of unquestioned standing in the educational world. 
Two extracts from the report must suffice to show its 
nature. 

"Let us now commence at the period when it is proper 
for a child to enter school. What is to engross his atten- 
tion now ? In any system of teaching, all concede that 
one of his first employments should be to learn the new 
language, the language of printed symbols, addressed 
not to the ear, but to the eye. And here commence the 
most divergent paths. The more common method is to 
drop entirely all that has hitherto occupied the child's 
attention, present him with the alphabet, point out the 
letters, and bid him echo their names in response to the 
teacher's voice. By far the greatest portion of his time 
is passed in a species of confinement and inactivity which 
ill comports with his former restless habits. Usually 
occupied in his school-work but twice, and then for 
a few moments only, during each session, he advances 
from necessity slowly ; and this imprisonment becomes 
irksome and offensive. To one who is not blinded by 



THE SPREAD OF THE OSWEGO IDEA. 35 

this custom, which has the sanction of a remote antiq- 
uity, the inquiry naturally forces itself upon his atten- 
tion, Is all this necessary? Must the child because 
he is learning a new language forget the old ? May he 
not be allowed to speak at times, even in school, and 
utter the vital thoughts that once filled his mind with 
delight ? May he not have some occupation that shall 
not only satisfy the restless activities of his nature, but 
also shall gratify his earnest desire for knowledge? 
Must he be made to feel that the new language of 
printed letters has no relation to the old ? Does he 
reach the goal of his school-work, as too often seems 
the case, when he can pronounce words by looking at 
their printed forms ? Why not recognize in the printed 
word the same vital connection between the word and 
the thought as before? Why not follow the dictates 
of a sound philosophy, the simple suggestions of com- 
mon sense, and recognize the fact that the child comes 
fresh from the school of Nature, where actual scenes 
and real objects have engrossed his whole attention, and 
have been the source of all that have made his life so 
happy ? If so, then why not let him draw freely from 
this source, while learning to read, nay, as far as pos- 
sible, make the very act of learning to read tributary to 
the same end, and at the earliest possible time make 
it appear that the new acquisition is but a delightful 
ally of his present power to speak? This transition 
from his free and happy life at home to the confine- 
ment of the schoolroom will be less painful to him, and 



36 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

at the same time it will be apparent that the school is 
not a place to check, but to encourage, investigation. 

" Such inquiries as these have occupied the minds of 
intelligent educators who have ventured to question the 
wisdom of past methods. And they have led to the in- 
troduction of objects familiar and interesting. 

" We come now to the final question : Does the plan 
pursued at Oswego conform to these general principles ? 

" We answer unhesitatingly — in the main it does." 

The report then goes on to describe at length the 
Oswego system as applied in the Oswego graded schools 
and in the six grades of the Practice School. It denom- 
inates the system of criticisms by special critic-teachers, 
the Observation-lessons and reports, as obviously supe- 
rior to that of any other for Normal training. The report 
is discriminating, and does not hesitate to point out occa- 
sional weaknesses, but after doing so concludes : — 

" These, however, at most were but spots on the face 
of the sun. The whole plan was admirable in theory 
and practice." 1 

The vindication was complete. The report was given 
wide circulation ; and from this time on the Oswego 
teachers and graduates found themselves, in response to 
many demands, enthusiastic propagandists of the new 
impulse, especially in the Western States. This impulse 
took on definite form in at least three directions. The 



1 Very full and representative extracts are made from this report in 
Gordy's Rise and Growth of Normal Schools, Bureau of Education, Cir- 
cular No. 8, 1891. 



THE SPREAD OF THE OSWEGO IDEA. 37 

first was the radical change in (1) subject-matter, (2) 
methods, (3) and spirit, which occurred in the instruction 
given in elementary schools. In regard to subject-matter, 
in the place of the narrow gauged " three R's," Oswego 
put a curriculum, embracing the "three R's " it is true, 
but containing besides the wealth of work with Nature, 
the study of plants, animals, soil, minerals, the air we 
breathe and the water we drink, the color exercises and 
form studies, the manual training and physical culture, 
which form the main features of the progressive public 
schools all over the land to-day. The objective method 
in all of these subjects took the place of humdrum text- 
book drill ; and lessons were presented so as to secure 
the child's spontaneous interest, and allow for his spon- 
taneous expression. Every step taken was carefully 
gauged to childhood's nature. The teacher tried to see 
things through the child's eyes ; the centre of gravity 
in the world of instruction was transferred from the 
teacher's personality to that of the child's ; so not only 
the subject-matter, but the method and spirit, of all ele- 
mentary instruction was vitally changed for the better 
in all schools touched by Oswego influence. 

The second noteworthy phase of Oswego influence 
was its effect in recasting the plan of organization and 
methods taught in the existing State Normal Schools. 
What were vague and transient experiments now be- 
came a settled and fortified system ; the great thing dis- 
covered here was, that there was something to teach in 
the line of rational methods, something distinctively 



38 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

devolving upon Normal-school men to work out. The 
practice-schools now became indispensable laboratories ; 
the plan of surrendering separate rooms and classes to 
the complete control of the teachers-in-training ; of con- 
stant private and class-criticism of her work in the clear 
light of definite principles ; the organization of the Nor- 
mal-school curriculum so as to make the last year dis- 
tinctly professional, the first part of it given up to 
discussions of educational theory and history, the last 
part to teaching in the school of practice ; this revivify- 
ing of old forms by new infusions into the then existing 
Normal Schools was Oswego's work for the Normal 
Schools of America. The new State Normals, which 
followed so quickly and so thickly in the wake of the 
Oswego demonstration, were all formed on the Oswego 
plan, and, as will be shown later, by Oswego graduates. 
The third distinctive result of Oswego influence was 
the establishment of City Normal and Training- Schools 
in many cities of the country, on the Oswego plan, by 
Oswego graduates. The way in which these important 
results were brought about will form the subject of the 
next chapter. 



J 







^IJK^L^ 






^> 


' W8$j®& w|l 





MATILDA S. COOPER 
(.Mrs. I. B. Poucher). 



CHAPTER IV. 

APPLICATION OF THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL 
SCHOOLS. 

It is impracticable to trace separately the lines of 
Oswego influence mentioned at the close of the last 
chapter. They were stated individually for the sake of 
clearness, but in practice the three phases went together 
and produced the change in form and spirit of instruc- 
tion known as the Oswego System. To some extent, 
however, the effect of the new methods upon the Nor- 
mal Schools of the country lends itself to separate 
treatment. Counting all schools bearing the name 
"Normal," we may say that there were some twenty 
Normal Schools in this country in 1860, of which only 
about one-half that number deserved that distinctive 
title. During the next decade this number was in- 
creased to nearly one hundred, 1 as against the twenty 
established during the two decades preceding 1860 ; 
and these latter were, moreover, in much greater per- 
centage, bona fide Normal Schools. Eighteen of these 
bona fide Normal Schools were set up west of the Alle- 



1 One hundred and fourteen are reported in Commissioner's Report 
for 1871 . Several of these, however, were departments in other schools, 
and some few others were short-lived, private enterprises. 

39 



40 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

ghanies, 1 eleven being State Normal Schools and seven 
public, city Normal and Training-Schools. Five of these 
were in the cities of Davenport (Iowa), Indianapolis, 
Fort Wayne, Cincinnati, and Dayton. These, it will be 
shown, were with scarcely an exception organized by 
Oswego graduates. 

In 1895 it was estimated that the number of Normal 
Schools of all classes had increased to three hundred 
and fifty-six, — one hundred and fifty -five of them being 
public Normal Schools, — while the number of gradu- 
ates from all institutions offering training-courses for 
teachers was estimated at twelve thousand. 2 Moreover, 
the Normal idea has at last won recognition from the 
universities and colleges ; and in 1895 six thousand, 
four hundred and two students were taking pedagogical 
training in one hundred universities and colleges. 

It is evident that among these numerous centres of 
pedagogical progress, no one institution could maintain 
the somewhat exclusive supremacy that Oswego en- 
joyed during its first two decades. It will be the pur- 
pose of this chapter to show to some extent the basis 
upon which that supremacy rested, by exhibiting the 
influence of Oswego upon the Normal Schools of the 
country so far as that influence can be traced in the di- 
rect work of Oswego graduates in these schools. 

It is unfortunate for such attempts to trace influence 
that we must confine ourselves to this direct method. 

1 Historical Sketches, p. 66. 

2 U. S. Commissioner of Education. Report for 1894-95. 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 41 

The indirect effects elude our search. It would be 
very interesting to show how many schools had been 
modified, how many ideals changed, how many impulses 
started, by individuals and groups of individuals merely 
having read of Oswego's work through the various re- 
ports published concerning it, or from having heard ad- 
dresses from Oswego graduates and teachers who were 
in popular demand as platform speakers in many State 
and national gatherings of teachers. A very good 
example of this indirect influence is the change which 
school text-books have undergone in the last thirty years 
in the direction of the Oswego reforms. For not only 
have Oswego graduates themselves done their share of 
producing better text-books, but men who were never in 
direct contact with the Oswego methods have furnished 
books in response to the demands created by those 
methods. But it is manifestly a hopeless task to trace 
any of these indirect influences. Such intangible im- 
pulses lose themselves in the host of influences that 
operate in the educational world; for while it will be 
clear that to Oswego is due the honor of giving a defi- 
nite start and momentum to these impulses in this 
country, it is doubtless true that the air was full of the 
spirit of reform ; and a decisive movement having once 
started, there were, of course, men and women who en- 
tered into the new truths independently of any con- 
scious Oswego influence. 

Confining ourselves then, as we must for purposes of 
demonstration, to the direct work of Oswego graduates 



42 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

in the Normal School, we find first, that the New York 
State Normal Schools were very promptly and effec- 
tively brought into line by Oswego's graduates. 

An Act passed in 1866, formally making the Oswego 
institution a State Normal School, 1 provided for six 
Normal Schools. In a paper 2 read at the twenty-fifth 
anniversary of the Oswego Normal School (1866), 
Professor Krusi reported that: — 

" The Fredonia (N.Y.) State Normal and Training-School at 
one time took nearly its entire corps of teachers from Oswego, 
Dr. Armstrong, the principal, having been teacher here (Oswego 
Normal). The State Normal and Training-Schools of Brockport, 
Potsdam, Genesee, Buffalo, Cortland, and New Paltz, have been 
organized on the same plan, and each has employed one or more 
graduates of the Oswego School as teachers of methods and for 
general training-work. The Oswego school may justly claim the 
credit, which is cheerfully accorded to her on every hand, of hav- 
ing laid the foundation and paved the way for the establishment 
of all the newer Normal and Training-Schools of the State." 

Another authority 3 indorses and broadens this claim 
in the following words : — 

" All the State Normal Schools excepting the one at Albany 4 

1 The Oswego school became virtually a State Normal School in 
March, 1863, when the Legislature passed an Act appropriating $3,000 
for its support. 

2 " History of the (Oswego) Normal School," by Herman Krusi, pub- 
lished in Historical Sketches of the State Normal and Training-School, 
Oswego, N.Y. 

3 Professor J. P. Gordy, in Rise and Growth of Normal Schools. 

4 In a foot-note Professor Gordy added that the Albany Normal School 
was then (1890) about to incorporate the Oswego plan into its profes- 
sional work. 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 43 

have been organized on the Oswego plan. Normal College in 
New York City was organized on the same plan with Oswego 
graduates to do the work in methods and criticism . . . and 
Oswego graduates were invited to organize training-schools in 
Rochester, Syracuse, and Malone, N. Y." 

Dr. A. D. Mayo, in a classic address delivered at Os- 
wego in 1886, said: — 

" But outside your own limits, your work has been greatly 
magnified in New York. Half a dozen new State schools have 
been established since the day when I used to drop into the first 
Normal in Albany ; and all these have been organized according 
to your plan and largely set in motion by your graduates. If I 
am rightly informed, your vigorous institute system is working 
on the same lines ; while the great city Normal Schools of New 
York and Brooklyn, with numerous local training-schools and the 
summer assemblies at Chautauqua and elsewhere are all but rep- 
etitions and applications of the new primary education inaugu- 
rated here twenty-five years ago. In saying this, I would do full 
justice to the many celebrated teachers of New York who have 
never been connected with these institutions. But whatever may 
be claimed concerning priority of thought, we must certainly look 
to Oswego as the earliest and most successful embodiment of this 
great movement, which in a quarter of a century has revolution- 
ized the primary instruction of the country." 

In 1867 Dr. Sheldon was offered the principalship of 
the Albany Normal, and in the same year the charge of 
the Pedagogical Department in the University of Mis- 
souri, but declined because he feared to jeopardize the 
growing interests of the school which was to be the 
monument of his life's work, and of which he has been 
the honored head for thirty-six years. 



.44 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

There is abundant evidence at hand to show that this 
process which went on so efficiently in the Normal Schools 
of New York State was operative in like manner iD many 
other States, east and west. New England, the birth- 
place of the Normal School and of nearly all other 
phases of educational progress in this country, was not 
too proud to be taught by its original western neighbor. 
At the time of Oswego's birth, New England was the 
fortunate possessor of five Normal Schools, four in Mass- 
achusetts and one in Connecticut. Most of these insti- 
tutions were pioneers in the cause of special training 
for teachers. To the measure of success they achieved 
was due the successful transplanting from Prussia of 
the Normal School idea in this country. The high char- 
acter of their work brought dignity to the profession, 
and the superior quality of the work done by the teach- 
ers they sent out all over New England demonstrated 
to the friends of education that there was a profitable 
realm — namely, theory and practice of teaching — which 
was yet to be worked for its best fruits. These early 
Normal Schools mapped out the territory, made some 
earnest explorations around its edges with now and 
then a dash into the interior, frequently exhibiting, Co- 
lumbus-like, before the eyes of a delighted populace speci- 
men-treasures from the great unknown wealth within. 
Thus, all of them forced a higher scholarship upon New 
England teachers, — indeed, one of their graduates who 
joined the pilgrimage to the Oswego Mecca in 1862 has 
recently expressed to me her utter surprise at finding 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IK NORMAL SCHOOLS. 45 

teachers taking part in the Oswego work who could 
boast only of a common school education. 1 

These New England Normals did pioneer work also 
in the important matter of co-education, for they ad- 
mitted women at the outset to all the privileges of the 
schools, and demonstrated the peculiar value of woman 
in the education of children. 

The failings of the New England Normal have al- 
ready been pointed out in the first chapter of this sketch. 
When all is said, it remains that these schools were 
conservatives, and contented themselves with perfecting 
a pedagogy which rested upon principles, many of them 
true enough, but still fragmentary, unorganized, and 
indissolubly linked to conventional applications. That 
New England in time saw this, the following extract 
from Dr. Mayo's address on " The Normal School in 
America," will show. After paying a deserved tribute 
to the pioneer work of the New England Normal, he 
continued: — 



1 Relative to the scholarship required hy Oswego of its students, this 
statement is found on p. 73 of Circular No. 8, issued by the Bureau of 
Education : — 

" At the outset, as we have seen, the school was organized as a strictly 
professional school. Candidates for admission were required to have 
pursued a course of study equal in thoroughness and extent to that pur- 
sued in the best high schools of the State. But the faculty of Oswego 
soon discovered that the knowledge of such students was not sufficiently 
thorough, or at least that a sufficient number of pupils, with a suffi- 
ciently thorough preparation, could not be found to fill the school on 
that plan. Accordingly, in 1865, it was decided to add a course of study 
in the English branches to the more strictly professional work. In 1867 
the ancient and modern languages were added." 



46 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

"But there was yet a great step forward to be taken. The 
spirit of the college and academy still brooded over the New 
Normal School. Its leading teachers were college graduates, and 
still believed with a mighty faith in the efficacy of exclusive lec- 
turing and class-room instruction. Their pupils were generally 
very young people, with only the crude knowledge gained in the 
country schools ; and two years seemed quite too short a time to 
stack them with useful knowledge, and give them an outfit in 
methods and rules for their coming work. Hence with few excep- 
tions the practice-school was ignored, and at best, a system of 
class-recitation, with occasional observation of school-work and 
lesson-giving used in its place. The senseless objection of ignorant 
parents, and stubborn opposition of jealous schoolmasters, often 
prevented the attempt to secure a great public school for observa- 
tion and practice under experts. 

" This has turned out the one serious defect of the New England 
State Normal. . . . For this reason a few years of good primary 
school-keeping in Quincy Mass., by that eminent genius for pri- 
mary instruction, Colonel Parker, ten years ago, so amazed certain 
eminent scholars and publicists of that locality, that the work 
was widely heralded as a discovery, and the 'Quincy System/ 
was elaborately written up throughthe land." 1 

" I shall not soon forget my first visit to the Boston Training- 
School of fifteen years ago, where one of the most accomplished 

1 Professor William F. Phelps, late principal of the Winona, Minn., 
State Normal School, in a recent letter, called my attention to the fact 
that twelve years before Colonel Parker did his excellent work at Quincy, 
the Winona School was doing similar work from Oswego models. The 
fact that quite elaborate "Nature Studies" constituted the basis of the 
expressive work at Oswego from the very beginning will be clearly seen 
by reference to Dr. Sheldon's Reports to the Board of Education at Os- 
wego, from 1859 to 1869. 

The Report of the Committee of educators made in 1861, and the one 
received by the National Educational Association (1865), give special 
notice to the Nature work done at Oswego. 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NOKMAL SCHOOLS. 47 

of your graduates, after many days, had compelled the attention 
of the most self-contained body of public school men in America. 
Out of that beautiful school has been developed a great deal more 
than we Yankees are accustomed to pass to the credit of New 
York. There is no portion of the country now more thoroughly 
alive with primary and common school reform than the more pro- 
gressive part of New England ; and the best thing that can be 
said of Oswego is, that she is only too glad to gather in all these 
later fruits, with no offensive claims to her own service in the 
planting-time of twenty years ago." 

The Oswego graduate to whom Dr. Mayo refers 
above was Miss Jennie Stickney (now Mrs. John A. 
Lansing), of whose work Professor Gordy writes : — 

" Miss Jennie Stickney, a graduate of the Salem (Mass.) State 
Normal School, after completing the course at Oswego, was em- 
ployed by the Boston Board to organize a city training-school on 
the plan of the Oswego School, and train their teachers in the 
new methods. She was for many years the principal of this 
school, until it grew into the present city Normal School, with 
Dr. Larkin Dunton at its head." 

Professor Gordy cites also the well-known Worcester, 
Mass., Normal as a New England development from the 
work of Oswego graduates. He says, " Miss Rebecca 
Jones, a lady of large experience, came from Worcester, 
Mass., to Oswego, and immediately after graduation was 
invited by the Worcester School Board to organize a 
training-school in that city on the Oswego plan, which 
has developed into the present State Normal School of 
national reputation, with Mr. Russell as principal." He 
also records the fact that a city training-school was 



48 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

organized in Lewiston, Me., by another Oswego gradu- 
ate, Miss Pond. The training-school at Portland, Me., 
also was organized by an Oswego graduate. 

Miss Stickney is more widely known through her 
text-books in Language and Reading than through 
her work at the Boston Normal. 1 These text-books have 
enjoyed a wide and well-merited popularity, and are all 
excellent examples of one way in which the Oswego 
principles have become disseminated throughout the 
land. A new State Normal School has just been opened 
at Hyannis, Mass. ; and Mr. W. A. Baldwin, an Oswego 
graduate, has been called upon to become its principal, 
and to organize it upon the Oswego plan. 

An Oswego graduate is teaching in the Springfield 
Training-school at North Adams. 

1 The Boston Normal was one of the first of the new type of City- 
Normal and Training-schools set afoot in various parts of the country by 
Oswego graduates. A recent editorial in an educational magazine throws 
considerable light upon the origin and the need of the City Training- 
School : — 

" One of the decided superiorities of the New York public school sys- 
tem was the new departure in methods of instruction at the Oswego 
State Normal School, some five and twenty years ago. And perhaps the 
most valuable feature was the organization of the City Training-School 
for teachers. At that date the State Normal Schools everywhere were 
thronged with pupils, largely from the rural districts and villages, whose 
academic preparation was of the most elementary sort. The emphasis 
of instruction was of necessity on the academic side, and thousands of 
these graduates went forth with a scholarship inferior to that of the 
higher grammar-grades in the schools of every considerable city. It 
was largely because of this lack of reliable scholarship that the training 
in Pedagogy in the State Normal was so ineffective ; for until one knows 
what to teach, a method is practically of little importance. Even so 
late as 1860, only one State Normal School in Massachusetts had a prac- 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 49 

Miss Sarah J. Walter, for many years the able head 
of the School of Practice at Oswego, is now at the head 
of a similar department in the Normal School at Wil- 
limantic, Conn. An Oswego graduate is also at work 
in the New Britain Normal School. 

The State Normal School at Trenton N. J., one of 
the best of those founded before the Oswego Normal, 
was one of the first to investigate the new methods. 
Its able principal was Professor Wm. F. Phelps, whose 
report of the work at Oswego has been already referred 
to. After his visit, Professor Phelps immediately sent 
one of his teachers to Oswego to learn the new system. 
Of the changes effected by this one teacher upon her 
return, Professor Phelps writes : — 

" One of the most striking and valuable features of this exper- 
iment was its suggestiveness. It was an < eye opener ' ; and it at 



tice department; and ten years previous not half-a-dozen teachers in 
the schools of the city of Springfield were graduates of the neighboring 
State Normal at Westport. President Sheldon of Oswego, followed by 
the New York State Normals, made it possible that the improved meth- 
ods of instruction should be successfully worked in the larger cities of 
the Middle and Western States by his admirable organization of the 
city training-school especially for primary teachers; of which every 
pupil should be a graduate of the city high school or its equivalent, 
and for at least one year be under the training of expert teachers, with 
a large section of the public schools set apart for a practice department. 
" New England with characteristic independence very slowly followed 
this lead. In several large towns, what was called a training-school 
was simply a group of high-school graduates, set to teach in a large 
building on half pay, under a master who was expected to give such 
professional instruction and guidance as possible to his worn-out subor- 
dinates." — Education, November, 1896. 



50 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

once set other teachers to thinking and studying, and the influ- 
ence of this one partially trained teacher extended far beyond the 
limits of her own room, to the school at large, and to the public 
schools of the town. . . . This experiment, imperfect as it was, 
led to lasting improvement. The new ideas, once finding a lodg- 
ment, were found to remain, and to grow in influence and power ; 
and the Normal School at Trenton to-day is in the front rank of 
institutions of its class in respect to its character, courses, and 
methods of instruction, and this is largely due to the impetus 
given it at that time." * 

In Pennsylvania, Professor Gordy states that Os- 
wego graduates were invited to organize Training- 
Schools at Philadelphia and at Reading. 

The new West was quickly responsive to the new 
methods. It was young, unconventional, little tram- 
melled by old traditions. It was settled by men who 
grasped opportunities. It had a consciousness that it 
could buy the best things the East could furnish. It 
was growing ambitious to possess a literature and an 
art. It was sensitive to remarks made about its educa- 
tion. It would have teachers as good as the best, 
methods as modern as its own life, — methods that were 
practical, real, and would yield quick results. These 
characteristics were inherent in the Oswego methods ; 
and the West adopted them in good, hearty, Western 
fashion. Says Dr. Mayo : — 

" But I am inclined to think no one influence during the past 
generation has been so potent in the Western common school- 
room as the Oswego Normal. While whole sections of the older 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 51 

States have been occupied in nailing Normal sign-boards on 
country academies of the old-time sort, the Western States, with 
the single exception of Ohio, have established one of the most 
effective systems of State Normal Schools and Institutes in the 
country. Ohio has perhaps led in the number and importance of 
her city Normal Schools, which, with the one exception of the 
admirable school at St. Louis, have led all American cities in the 
training of teachers. Every Normal School, as far as I know, 
State or city, between Pittsburg and San Francisco, has been or- 
ganized on the Oswego plan ; and hundreds of her graduates have 
been at work in them since 1865." 1 

It is very desirable that the particulars upon which 
such generalizations are based be exhibited to the reader, 
and this can conveniently be done by tracing the labors 
of Oswego graduates in the Normal Schools of the West 
by States. The opinions of competent eye-witnesses of 
this peaceful revolution will also prove of some value 
in helping us to gain a correct idea of what was accom- 
plished. 

Miss Amanda Funnelle was graduated from the class 
of '62. She taught two years in the training-school at 
Oswego, which position she left to take charge of the 
model primary department in the State Normal School 
at Albany, N.Y., the oldest of the New York Normal 
Schools. At the end of three years this position was 
given up that she might introduce the new methods 
in the City Training-School at Indianapolis, then just 
organized. From here Miss Funnelle was called to 

1 " The Normal School in America," hy A. D. Mayo, in Historical 
Sketches of the State Normal and Training-school at Oswego, 1886. 



52 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

become the teacher of methods of primary instruction 
in the Indiana State Normal School at Terre Haute. 
Here Miss Funnelle put in eleven years of work. Sub- 
sequently she added Detroit, Mich., to her itinerary, 
where she held the position of principal teacher of the 
Detroit normal- and training-class, having for her assis- 
tant the Miss Scott who has lately done such original 
work in the City Training-School of Detroit. The In- 
diana Normal Schools in which Miss Funnelle labored 
have sent out hundreds of graduates, who have thus 
taken the Oswego methods into every section of the 
State. President Smart of Purdue University thus re- 
ports the results of his observation of Oswego influence 
in Indiana : — 

" I am very glad to give you my opinion concerning the influ- 
ence of the Oswego Normal School upon the educational interests 
of Indiana. I have had several Oswego graduates working under 
my immediate supervision for a number of years, and during my 
term of office as State Superintendent of Indiana I observed the 
work of many others. Oswego graduates have been employed in 
some of our large cities as superintendents of training-schools, 
and as teachers in other departments, and as instructors in our 
State Normal School. I am free to say that to the influence of 
no class of teachers are we so much indebted as to those who 
have come to us from Oswego. Those who are acquainted with 
the work and influence of the City Training-School of Indianap- 
olis, of the City Training-School of Fort Wayne, and of the work 
of the training-teachers in the State Normal School, will, I am 
sure, indorse this statement." 1 

1 Quoted by Mrs. Delia Lathrop Williams, in an article on "The 
Influence of the Oswego State Normal School in the West," contained 
in Historical Sketches of the State Normal School at Oswego. 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 53 

The unusual compliments bestowed by Dr. Rice on 
the Indianapolis schools on his recent trip of investiga- 
tion have their foundation in the good work done by 
Miss Funnelle in the training-school of that city, and 
ably continued by Superintendent L. H. Jones, an 
Oswego graduate, now superintendent of the schools 
of Cleveland, Ohio. 1 

Mr. Jones was graduated from Oswego in 1870, and 
immediately responded to the Western call in accepting 
a position in the State Normal School at Terre Haute, 
Ind. At the end of a year's work in the Normal at 
Terre Haute, Mr. Jones spent one year in the Indian- 
apolis High School, and the next eight years as princi- 
pal of the Normal Training-School at Indianapolis. The 
subsequent ten years were occupied as superintendent 
of the schools of Indianapolis, in which position his 
work attracted national attention. For many years he 
has been a force in the National Educational Associa- 
tion, and was a member of the famous Committee of 
Fifteen. Last year Superintendent Jones was chosen 
president of the Department of Superintendence. It is 
easy to see how through the work of such men and 
women Oswego ideas grew into dominant forces, and 
her methods became common property in the Western 
States. 

No State has been more thoroughly saturated with 
the Oswego innovations than Ohio. The chief educa- 
tiona 1 centres of Ohio to-day are those in which Oswego 

1 Forum, December, 1892. 



54 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

influence early became the controlling element. Miss 
Sarah Duganne, an Oswego graduate of the class of '64, 
accepted the principalship of the Cincinnati Training- 
School. In 1886 it had sent out eight hundred and 
twenty young women imbued with the Oswego spirit, 
who have honeycombed the schools of Ohio. The Day- 
ton Normal School placed at its head a woman trained 
in Oswego principles at the Cincinnati Normal, and be- 
tween the years 1869 and 1885 it had sent forth one 
hundred and ninety-nine young women to join forces 
with the eight hundred and twenty from the Cincinnati 
Normal. Cleveland has a flourishing training-school 
as a result of the general movement set afoot by Oswego 
graduates. During its first ten years it sent out more 
than five hundred teachers. The able superintendent 
of the Cleveland schools is an Oswego graduate. San- 
dusky organized a training-school on the Oswego plan, 
and the training-school at Columbus was started with 
an Oswego graduate at its head. 

Dr. E. E. White, one of the foremost educators of 
the last quarter century, thus speaks of Oswego influ- 
ence in Ohio and Indiana : — 

" I take pleasure in bearing testimony to the fact that this 
school exerted in its early history marked influence on primary 
instruction in Ohio and Indiana, a more effective influence than 
all the other Normal Schools in the country." 



1 Quoted by Mrs. Delia Lathrop Williams in her paper in Historical 
Sketches of the State Normal and Training-School, Oswego, N.Y. 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 55 

And Dr. Hancock, " a man thoroughly conversant with 
the history of every public-school movement in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley," says : — 

"I am sure the Institute of 1867 in Cincinnati, in which those 
eminent teachers and Oswegoans, Dr. Armstrong, Professor Kriisi, 
Miss Seaver, Miss Cooper, and Mrs. Mary Howe Smith took part, 
marked an era in the schools of that city. They presented the 
business of teaching in a light in which it had not been seen be- 
fore by the large body of teachers there assembled. The spirit 
infused into this body by this new education was the main cause 
of the establishment of the city Normal School, with Miss Sarah 
Duganne, an Oswego graduate, at its head. She was followed by 
Miss Delia A. Lathrop, another Oswego graduate, who, with the 
assistance of four other graduates of Oswego, carried forward the 
work for seven years. Here was begun the great fight between 
dynamic and mechanic instruction, — a fight that has been going on 
ever since with somewhat varying success, but on the whole with 
a sure gain of territory by the first of these belligerent parties." 

Mrs. Mary Howe Smith (Pratt), mentioned in the 
quotation above, informs me that institutes similar to the 
one at Cincinnati were held for a succession of years in 
various parts of Ohio and Indiana, and aroused immense 
enthusiasm, resulting in an immediate increase in the 
number of applicants from Ohio and Indiana for admis- 
sion to the Oswego school. Mrs. Smith was in great 
demand for her clear expositions of the Oswego methods, 
and her aid was solicited by Professor Guyot of Prince- 
ton to apply the Pestalozzian principles to his well- 
known series of geography text-books. 

Oswego methods early secured a foothold in Iowa. 



66 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

A Normal department had been a prominent feature of 
the University of Iowa since 1857. The Report of the 
United States Commissioner of Education for 1867-68 
calls attention to the fact that Oswego graduates had 
reached that department. In the same volume we are 
told of a City Training-School in one of the cities of 
the State, that the " instruction is similar to that given 
in the Elementary Training-course at Oswego." Of 
Ottumwa, Iowa, the same report says, " The superin- 
tendent was successful in obtaining a competent and 
experienced teacher, and the training-school was opened 
in the autumn of '67. Miss Pride, the training-teacher 
secured, was a graduate of the Normal Training-School 
at Oswego, N.Y." In 1862 an Oswego graduate, Miss 
Mary V. Lee, known as Dr. Lee to all Oswego people, 
in company with Mrs. Mary E. McGonegal, opened the 
Davenport, Iowa, Training-School for teachers, under 
the general direction of Superintendent Kissell. Dr. 
Lee was one of the strongest personalities connected 
with the spread of the Oswego movement ; and her work 
in Iowa, as elsewhere, was full of life and suggestiveness, 
and created a profound impression in that section. 

Professor H. H. Seeley, president of the Iowa State 
Normal School at Cedar Falls, writes me that twenty- 
four years ago he was a student in the department of 
didactics at the State University, in which the teacher 
of methods was an Oswego graduate. "I therefore ob- 
tained from her," says he, "more or less of the first 
information and scientific conception of methods and 
plans in elementary education." 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 57 

" You can set Minnesota down as a Normal State ac- 
cording to the standard established at Oswego." These 
few words of Professor William F. Phelps tell the story 
of Oswego's remarkable achievement in Minnesota. 

The Winona, Minn., Normal School, originally pro- 
jected in 1860, was not put on a working basis until 
1864, when President Phelps of the Trenton Normal 
School, and chairman of the Committee of Educators 
at Oswego in 1861, was invited to become its president. 
This he did in radical fashion. His plan was to make 
it over completely, according to the plans he had just 
witnessed at Oswego. Accordingly he filled the faculty 
immediately with Oswego graduates, or teachers in- 
structed in the training-schools established by Oswego 
graduates. In the spring of 1865 he called Dr. Lee 
from her Davenport work to become his first assistant 
at Winona. Of her work here he speaks as follows : — 

" Miss Lee was admirably equipped, both by nature and train- 
ing, for her responsible position. She had been very successful at 
Davenport, and had turned out many excellent disciples of the 
Oswego dispensation ; and as the institution at Winona enlarged 
I secured several other ladies from the Davenport school, . . . 
all of whom were well fitted to illustrate the ideas of the new 
education ; and the result was, that we had a second edition of 
Oswego transplanted to the new State of Minnesota." 

The Winona Normal was the first in the State, and 
set the standard for the other four since established. 
Professor Phelps writes that there are Oswego gradu- 



58 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

ates in all the Normals, and that they have been there 
from the beginning. The training-departments of the 
Mankato and St. Cloud Normals were put in charge of 
Oswego graduates. Of the normal schools in Minne- 
sota, Professor Phelps concludes, — 

" They owe their strength and usefulness to the development 
of the methods taught at Oswego, and the public schools are reap- 
ing the benefits." 

Michigan was one of the first States to yield to. the 
persuasiveness of the Oswego methods ; for the first grad- 
uating class of the Oswego Normal (in 1862) sent two 
of its best teachers to its schools, — Miss Kate Davis 
who went to East Saginaw, developed its Training- 
School, and has worked chiefly in Training-Schools 
since, and Miss Amanda Funnelle, whose work in 
the Detroit Training-School has already been mentioned. 
Since then the alumni record shows, that, with one ex- 
ception, every year for twenty-five years has furnished 
one or more graduates to the schools in various parts 
of the State, including the Training-School at Grand 
Rapids. At present Miss Anna B. Herrig, an Oswego 
graduate, is the efficient Superintendent of the Depart- 
ment of Practice in the newly established Central Mich- 
igan State Normal School. 

Michigan's sister State, Wisconsin, at a later period 
incorporated Oswego methods in some of its principal 
educational institutions. Of one way in which this was 
accomplished, Professor William F. Phelps writes : — 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NOBMAL SCHOOLS. 59 

" In 1876 I was called to preside over one of the Wisconsin 
Normal Schools. The new methods had not then any foothold 
in that conservative State. In making changes in the teaching 
force, I drew upon Oswego for those progressive elements needed 
to work a reform in the school and its antiquated notions and 
practices. The effect of the introduction of those teachers was 
revolutionary ; but it introduced many salutary changes and im- 
provements, that have not been lost upon the Normal School system 
of that Commonwealth." 

Wisconsin now has seven State Normal Schools or- 
ganized on the Oswego plan, and doing work of which 
any State might be proud. Miss Margaret W. Morley, 
author of those charming books, Songs of Life and Seed 
Babies, and a former teacher at Oswego, has done some 
especially good work at the Milwaukee Normal School ; 
so did also Miss Eleanor Worthington, another Oswego 
graduate. An item in the History of Education in 
Wisconsin, edited by Dr. J. W. Stearns, shows that Mrs. 
Anna Randall (Diehl) of Oswego was employed in the 
first faculties of both the Whitewater and Platteville 
Normals (1868) as teacher of reading and elocution. 

Training departments are still being organized by 
Oswego graduates in these Northwestern States. A 
recent letter from President Beadle of the new State 
Normal School at Madison, S. Dak., gives in substance 
the following data : — 

The school was organized in 1883, and proceeded with a faculty 
few in numbers till the fall of 1887, when the force was enlarged, 
and the following graduates from Oswego were appointed : — 



60 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

M. Adelaide Holton, 

Principal of Training-School. Theory and Practice of Teaching 

Annie Klingensmith, 

Drawing, Critic Teacher in Training-School 

In 1889 was added from Oswego, 

Clara Holton, 

Critic Teacher, Vocal Music. 

In 1890, 

Harriet Eastabrooks, 
Critic Teacher. 

In 1892, 

Anna B. Herrig, 

Principal of Training-School, Methods Critic. 

Emma E. Rowe (Mrs. Grant Smith), 

Critic. 

The next year both these ladies resigned, and the fol- 
lowing teachers from Oswego supplied their places : — 

Bernice M. Wright, 

Principal of Training-School. 

Nellie Collins, 

Primary Critic. 

Burgess Shank, 

Drawing. Botany, Zoology, Physiology. 

Miss Wright (now Mrs. Shank) and Mr. Shank are 
now studying in Jena, Germany. 

" Oswego has therefore," says President Beadle, " directly and 
greatly influenced the whole life and work of the school in train- 
ing teachers and graduates, one hundred and fifty of whom are now 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 61 

teaching with great success in this State, a few of them in other 
States." 

This school furnishes a good example of the way in 
which most of our Western Normal Schools have devel- 
oped their professional work. 

In Illinois the work of Oswego teachers has been 
quite generally distributed among the public schools of 
the State. Among the Normal Schools it has been 
most notable in Colonel Parker's school at Chicago, 
formerly the Cook County Normal. A member of 
Oswego's second graduating-class (1863) taught seven 
years in the Cook County Normal. Since then Colonel 
Parker has freely employed Oswego teachers. 1 Profes- 
sor H. H. Straight 2 and his wife, Mrs. Emma Dicker- 
man Straight, whose work in Nature Studies at Oswego 
was most original, were picked out from the Oswego 
faculty by Professor Parker's discerning eye. Professor 
Parker calls them pioneers in the teaching of elementary 
science to little children. 

The following Oswego graduates, also, were captured 
by Colonel Parker : — 

Mr. George Fitz, now a professor at Harvard; Mrs. 
Mary Ailing- Aber, author of An Experiment in Educa- 
tion ; Miss Eleanor Worthington and Dr. Marie Mergler. 
Miss Emily J. Rice, an Oswego graduate, is teaching 



1 See Colonel Parker's estimate of the influence of the Oswego Normal 
School at the close of Chap. II. 

2 Professor Straight was for a time Vice-principal of the Cook County 
Normal. 



62 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

at present in Colonel Parker's school. He has recently- 
pronounced her " one of the best teachers of history and 
literature in the country." 

Oswego graduates have also labored in the State 
Normal School at Normal, 111., and in the training- 
school at Oak Park. 

Chicago is now the headquarters of the Western 
Alumni Association of Oswego graduates. 

Evidence is not wanting that Missouri early learned 
of Oswego's work. At the laying of the corner-stone 
of the Warrensburg Normal, Professor D. H. Crut- 
tenden of the Oswego Normal delivered one of the 
addresses. Reference to the alumni record will show 
that a number of Oswego graduates have taught at 
this Normal school. Between 1872 and 1875 Professor 
Straight and his wife, one an Oswego graduate, the 
other a member of its faculty soon after, were members 
of the faculty of this institution, then under the prin- 
cipalship of James Johannot. President Osborne writes 
me that at the present time the mathematical depart- 
ment of the Warrensburg Normal is in charge of Pro- 
fessor George H. Howe, an Oswego graduate ; and a 
recent addition to the faculty is Professor A. W. Nor- 
ton, formerly in charge of the Practice Department at 
Oswego, but more recently principal of the State Nor- 
mal at Peru, Nebraska. 

Several Oswego graduates have been identified with 
the Kirksville Normal, among whom was Professor 
Charles S. Sheldon, who held for a number of years the 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 63 

chair of Natural Science, and is now doing similar work 
in his father's school at Oswego. 

Nebraska has but one State Normal School, organized 
in 1867. Its professional work was established on the 
Oswego plan, 1 and Oswego graduates have from time 
to time been called upon to work in that department; 
prominent among these was Miss Margaret K. Smith, 
who held the chair of School of Economy and Methods 
there. Three years ago the principalship of the institu- 
tion was conferred upon a former teacher at Oswego, 
Professor A. W. Norton, and its professional work was 
put in charge of Miss Anna B. Herrig, an Oswego 
graduate; the Kindergarten Department and the De- 
partment of Science were also put under the guidance 
of Oswego graduates. 

In Kansas, in 1868, Oswego methods were intro- 
duced into the Leavenworth Schools by Oswego gradu- 
ates. A Normal School was established on the Oswego 
plan, and for six years sent out graduates imbued with 
the Oswego spirit into different parts of the State. An 
Oswego graduate taught for eleven years in the State 
University of Kansas, at Lawrence. 

Out in New Mexico, a Normal course was established 
in the University of Mexico by an Oswego graduate. 

Replies I have recently received show that as far 
west as Oregon, Oswego graduates are in charge of the 
Training-Department in the State Normal School at 

1 Circular of Information, No. 8, 1891, p. 75, U. S- Bureau of Educa- 
tion. 



64 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Monmouth. In the new State of Washington an Os- 
wego graduate is in charge of the Training-Depart- 
ment of the State Normal at Cheney; and the vice- 
president of the school is an Oswego graduate. He 
was recently tendered the principalship of the school, 
but declined. I am also informed, that, failing to find 
Normal Schools in Montana and Utah, Oswego gradu- 
ates have invaded the State universities of those 
States. 

Oswego influence in California is most strikingly 
manifested in the novel work of Earl Barnes, class of 
'84, and Mary Sheldon Barnes, class of '69, both pro- 
fessors in Leland Stanford, Jr., University. Professor 
Barnes, because of his valuable contributions to scien- 
tific child study, has been ranked next to Stanley Hall, 
the foremost investigator in our country in his chosen 
field. Mrs. Barnes is a daughter of Dr. Sheldon, and 
became generally known first through her Studies in 
General History, 1 in many respects the most original 
text-book of the last quarter century, in which the 
scientific method as applied to the teaching of the 
sciences at Oswego has found a singularly complete 
and successful application. Since then, Mrs. Barnes 
has issued an American history 1 on the same plan, 
which has met with a remarkable success considering 
the hard thinking which the method requires of young 
minds. Both Mrs. Barnes and Professor Earl Barnes 
are frequent contributors to educational literature, 
i P. C. Heath & Co., Boston. 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 65 

Other Oswego graduates have done good work for the 
State Normal School of San Jose. 

It thus seems reasonably certain that Oswego influ- 
ence upon the Normal Schools of practically every 
Western State and Territory has been both direct and 
powerful. In nearly all the cases cited, Oswego gradu- 
ates themselves have superintended the introduction of 
the new system in the Normal Schools ; in other cases 
these schools have invariably formed the type for the 
later Normal Schools which the good work of the earlier 
ones called into existence. 

At the South, for a long time after the war, the feel- 
ing between the two sections, which had kept the North 
and South separate years before the war, confined the 
work of Oswego graduates almost entirely to the schools 
for the freedmen. The Pestalozzian methods were pe- 
culiarly adapted to the awakening mind of a race which 
had been forced for centuries to derive its ideas from 
the concrete, — a race from whom books and most forms 
of abstract thinking had been rigorously removed. 
"From the concrete to the abstract," was equivalent 
here to that other Pestalozzian maxim, " From the 
known to the unknown." The isolated and private 
character of many of the schools for the negro at the 
South has made it a difficult task to get detailed ac- 
counts of Oswego's influence upon this section of our 
country. In the decade succeeding the war these 
schools were, with minor exceptions, either completely 



66 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

ignored and isolated by the great body of the Southern 
whites, or more or less actively opposed; a condition 
of affairs which made the spread of Oswego methods 
to the white schools almost an impossibility. But in 
the schools for colored youth the new methods accom- 
plished most gratifying results, notably at Avery Nor- 
mal Institute, Charleston, S.C., and Atlanta University, 
Atlanta, Ga. 

Professor Amos W. Farnham, now principal of the 
Department of Practice at the Oswego Normal, was 
the first to break the way into the South with any con- 
siderable momentum. He was employed in 1875 as 
principal of the Avery Normal Institute. He associated 
with him three Oswego teachers. The professional work 
was thoroughly organized on the Oswego plan ; and Na- 
ture Study and Industrial Work, from the start essen- 
tial features of the Oswego philosophy, here received 
especial prominence. The graduates of this school were 
instrumental in spreading the practical features of the 
new education in many sections of the State among 
their own people. 

Four years later Professor Farnham began a similar 
work at Atlanta University, the leading school in Geor- 
gia for the higher education of the colored people. Here, 
again, nature work and industrial education assumed 
great prominence in the scheme of pedagogy. Evi- 
dence of the high character of the nature work done 
here is the book, Development Lessons, by Mr. DeGrafT 
and Miss M. K. Smith, an Oswego graduate. " The 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 67 

lessons on insects which that book contains are a tran- 
script of work done in Atlanta University by M. K. 
Smith, class of January '83. She also gave in that 
institution the Development Lessons on Form and Plants, 
and the plant illustrations which the book contains were 
engraved from drawings made by Miss Smith's pupils." 1 
In Charleston and Atlanta, at this period, Professor 
Farnham reports that their Normal departments were 
visited by the prominent teachers of the white schools 
and members of the school boards. " It is plain to be 
seen," says he, "in localities where good work is done 
for colored youth, that the whites of those localities 
increased their efforts for the education of the white 
youth. And the more progressive patrons of white 
schools are on the qui vive that their children's school 
privileges shall not be inferior to those of colored chil- 
dren in their midst." 

After remaining at Atlanta three 3^ears, Professor 
Farnham was called to organize the Normal department 
of Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C. At the end 
of two years, Professor Farnham declined an offer to 
take charge of the department of Nature Study in the 
Cook County Normal, that he might continue the effec- 
tive itinerant missionary work he was doing at the 
South ; accordingly the next two years were spent in 
organizing the American Missionary Association's school 
at Selma, Ala. Professor Farnham's latest work was 
the establishment of the Orange Park Normal School, 

1 Paper by Professor Farnham in " Historical Sketches." 



68 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL 

in Orange Park, Fla., a school novel in more than one 
respect, and one which has lately provoked more atten- 
tion from the Florida State Superintendent of Educa- 
tion, the Florida Legislature, and the press at large, 
than an}' other school in Florida. 

In 1884 an Oswego graduate, Miss E. D. Santley, 
became principal of Beach Institute at Savannah, Ga., 
and successfully applied the Oswego methods in that in- 
stitution. Spelman Seminary, the largest girls' school in 
the South, perhaps in the country (it had nine hundred 
girls a few years ago), has for some time placed its Teach- 
ers' Training Department under Oswego influence. 

Early in the '80's Miss Anna Baldwin, an Oswego 
graduate, carried forward the work in the famous Hamp- 
ton Normal and Agricultural Institute. Other Oswego 
teachers have followed her from time to time, one of 
whom, Miss Susan Showers, has since done a note- 
worthy work at the new Calhoun School in Lowndes 
County, Ala. Oswego teachers have worked in Fisk 
University at Nashville, Tenn., in Tougaloo University 
at Tougaloo, Miss., in Clarksdale, Miss., Augusta, Ga., 
and the colored schools at Baltimore. 

An observant writer on Southern education has 
said : — 

" The Southern negro, in some respects, has been more fortu- 
nate than his white brethren. At Hampton, Va., is established 
one of the best training-schools in the South, which has sent 
forth great numbers of effective teachers for the colored children. 
The < Colleges ' and ' Universities,' perhaps a score in number, 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 69 

that have been established by Northern missions, made the mis- 
take, at first, of pitching the key too high, and leaving out of 
account the mighty factor of heredity in dealing with their pupils. 
It has been largely owing to the graduates of our Northern Nor- 
mal Schools, who have been employed as teachers, that this cleri- 
cal and collegiate mistake has been gradually overcome. The 
gift of Slater has now enabled nearly all of them to inaugurate 
industrial training. Thus organized, these ' universities ' for the 
colored people are really in some respects the most original 
schools in our country, and are destined to become a mighty 
power in the uplift of the American colored citizen." 

The limited scope and practical character of these 
new Normal departments soon proved them to be the 
very thing needed in the colored schools. The crying 
necessity for educated teachers for the emancipated race 
was so apparent to all, that Normal departments needed 
to waste no time in arguing their case or overcoming 
scholastic prejudices. They formed an easy transition 
from the hyper-classical curricula of which Dr. Mayo 
complains, to the shorter, more immediately useful Eng- 
lish courses in the " colleges " and " universities." At 
the present day they are justly the most popular courses 
in all colored schools engaged in the higher studies. 
In 1895 eight hundred and forty-four students were 
graduated from Normal courses in these institutions, 
while one hundred and eighty-six were graduated from 
collegiate courses. Many of these Normal courses in 
the colored schools make considerable provision for in- 
dustrial training, either in the shape of a nearly parallel 
industrial course, or of so many hours per week in the 
Normal course proper. 



70 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

All classes of the schools of the South to-day share 
the benefits of the new education. Not only is the prej- 
udice against Northern Normal trained teachers in white 
schools fast disappearing, but every Southern State has 
its own system of Normal Schools for both races. In 
these newer Normal Schools at the South, Oswego 
influence is mostly secondary ; that is, the Northern 
teachers who have aided in this new awakening at the 
South have themselves been educated in the Normal 
Schools so generally established, as shown in the first 
part of this chapter, under Oswego influences. Oswego 
graduates introduced the Oswego Methods in the Train- 
ing-School at Washington, D.C., in the seventies. 

From the work of Oswego graduates in the Normal 
Schools of the country, which it has been the purpose of 
this chapter to exhibit, it is not difficult to realize the tre- 
mendous influence which Oswego has exerted, through 
the Normal Schools alone, upon the common schools of 
the land. Every year these Normal Schools send out 
thousands of teachers who have learned the new educa- 
tion in schools whose professional work was organized 
by Oswego graduates. These teachers can be found in 
nearly every city and town of the country, — in public 
schools, private schools, and Kindergartens. 

The revolution has been complete. The days of the 
reign of the alphabet, the blue-back speller, the dreary 
rules, the narrow gauged curriculum, the impenetrable 
text-book, the sunless, tradition-bound schoolroom and 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 71 

schoolmaster, are happily at an end. The new era 
of light and love and freedom is the heritage of every 
American boy and girl. All honor to Pestalozzi, to Dr. 
Sheldon, and to the American educators, who were so 
ready to see the good and adopt it. 

Oswego is a school with a past. It also has a pres- 
ent. Semi-annually it is sending out graduates with 
still better equipment than that possessed by those of 
the first decade ; and wherever they go, their influence 
is still noticeable for professional zeal and pedagogical 
skill. A complete census of Oswego graduates now at 
work in our schools would scarcely pay for the work 
involved, for it would reveal nothing new. However, 
some replies recently received to letters of inquiry sent 
into a number of States will not be without value as 
evidence. It will of course be recognized that the 
many excellent Normal Schools in all the States now 
render the migration of Oswego graduates from New 
York State exceptional rather than the rule. 

To trace Oswego graduates throughout New York 
State would be an endless task. They are to be found 
in all grades of public schools in all sections of the 
State. There are about seventy teachers in the public 
schools of Oswego, all but two or three of whom are 
Oswego graduates. A goodly number may be found in 
the schools of Yonkers, Ilion, Albany, New York, 
Brooklyn, Buffalo, Syracuse, and other cities and vil- 
lages of the State. In Buffalo Mr. C. N. Millard, '90, 
is the popular superintendent of all the Grammar 



72 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Grades of the city. Other Oswego graduates may be 
found there as principals of schools, in the high school, 
Buffalo Seminary, and on the faculty of the Buffalo 
Normal School. 

The Brooklyn Training-School employs Oswego gradu- 
ates as teachers of methods and critics. A large num- 
ber are teaching in the Brooklyn city schools, eight are 
teaching in the Froebel Academy (founded by an Os- 
wego graduate), and several are members of the faculty 
of Adelphi College. 

The Teachers' Training class in Syracuse is in charge 
of an Oswego graduate ; others are teaching in the high 
school and grammar schools of the city. Long Island 
has become remarkably partial to Oswego graduates. 
One of their number informs me that nearly all the 
teachers at Sayville, Greenport, Islip, Patchogue, Bay 
Shore, and Northport are Oswego graduates ; they are 
also at work on Staten Island and in Long Island City. 
Indeed, some years ago Long Island supported a flour- 
ishing Oswego alumni association. Recently it has be- 
come merged in the New York State Alumni Association 
of Oswego graduates. Several of the best private schools 
in New York State select their teaching force largely 
from among Oswego graduates. Instances are the 
Misses Masters' Ladies' School at Dobb's Ferry, the 
Albany Academy, and Emma Willard School at Troy, 
and the German Academy, Hoboken. 

In the neighboring State of New Jersey a number of 
graduates are at work in Paterson, at large salaries ; 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 73 

others at Hasbrouck Institute, Jersey City, and East 
Orange. 

New England still keeps in touch with Oswego 
graduates. The schools at Brookline, Mass., among 
the best in the country, are permeated with the influ- 
ence of Oswego graduates. The late superintendent of 
the Andover Schools (more recently of the schools of 
Dan vers and Belmont) and a number of his assistants 
are Oswego graduates. Oswego graduates are teaching 
in North Adams, Shelburne Falls, Springfield, and 
other places in Massachusetts. They are in Bridge- 
port, Stamford, and other places in Connecticut. A 
number are in Burlington, Vt., and several are in 
smaller towns of that State. Oswego graduates are at 
work in the public schools of nearly all of the cities of 
the Great West. Oswego influence, however, as has 
been shown, was most strongly felt in the West in the 
State and city Normal Schools, which now furnish the 
supply of teachers for the city schools. 

The Oswego methods have extended beyond the 
limits of the United States into foreign countries. 
Canada, where Dr. Sheldon received his first definite 
suggestions, has from time to time welcomed Oswego 
graduates to her schools ; and the Canada Board of 
Education has sent delegates to observe the Oswego 
work. South of us, in our sister republic, Mexico, an 
Oswego graduate has been working for fifteen years. 

South America has employed Oswego graduates, or 



74 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

teachers taught by Oswego graduates, quite extensively 
in some of its States, notably the Argentine Republic. 
Professor Wm. F. Phelps, who has called the Winona 
Normal the u second edition of Oswego," was chiefly 
instrumental in the exodus, and thus refers to it : — 

" As an example of the secondary influence of Oswego, let me 
state that in the early '70's there was a call from the Argentine 
Republic for teachers of the modern type for the Normal 
schools of that country. One of my graduates, Miss S. E. Wade, 
was sent there, and was given a commanding position in the Nor- 
mal School at Parana, where she remained for four years. Her 
work was so satisfactory that others were called for ; and Miss 
Frances E. Allen of the Winona School was commissioned, and 
stayed there for five years or more. The work of these ladies 
was so acceptable that others still were demanded ; and I was glad 
to be instrumental in sending some fifteen or twenty in all. 
Many of them are still there, among them Miss Armstrong of 
Oswego, and others whose names I cannot now recall. These 
ladies have wrought a wonderful change in the schools and in the 
ideas of the people. They have practically shaped the public 
school policy of that country. I think there were some six or 
eight Normal Schools supported by the provincial and national 
government." 

An Oswego graduate has taught also at Bogota, State 
of Colombia. 

Japan is not unacquainted with Oswego methods. 
Mr. Hideo Takamine, who was graduated from Oswego 
in 1877, was appointed by the Department of Education 
in Japan, director of the Higher Normal School at 
Tokio, a position he filled for nine years. An official 



THE OSWEGO IDEA IN NORMAL SCHOOLS. 75 

in the department informs me that Mr. Takamine 
" rendered good service to the advancement of general 
education in Japan." 

In 1887 Mrs. Emma Dickerman Straight, class of 
'71, whose work in Nebraska, Missouri, and the Cook 
County Normal has already been mentioned, went to 
Tokio, where she taught for a number of years in the 
Higher Normal School. 1 Miss Harriet S. Ailing, of the 
class of '83, is at present teaching in that country. A 
few years ago a Japanese lady spent several months at 
Oswego in observation. 

Oswego propagandists have played a large part in 
the remarkable development which elementary educa- 
tion has undergone in Hawaii. Since 1872 a number 
of Oswego graduates have been called to the distant 
islands, and several are now teaching there. In 1895 
two Hawaiian young men were graduated from the 
Oswego Normal. They were sent there by a wealthy 
gentleman in that country, and have now returned as 
teachers to their native islands. 



1 For the relation of this school to the other Normal Schools of 
Japan, see article on "The Educational System of Japan." Report of 
U. S. Commissioner of Education for 1890-91, vol. i. 



CHAPTER V. 

LATER MOVEMENTS AT OSWEGO. 

Oswego was the first State Normal School in the 
United States to offer a definite course in the Kinder- 
garten methods. Its Kindergarten course was estab- 
lished in 1881. The rooms were large, beautifully 
decorated and equipped at the start with all the Kin- 
dergarten necessities that good taste could suggest. The 
Kindergarten is free to the children of the city, and is 
exceedingly popular, mothers having to secure places 
for their children a year ahead. The music, the pic- 
tures, the warm colors, the merry games, the busy work, 
and happy faces of delighted children make these 
rooms an attractive feature for visitors. After the es- 
tablishment of this department, Oswego graduates had 
the privilege of watching under skilled direction the 
unfolding of childhood's buds, from the tots of four 
years of age in the Kindergarten, through the primary, 
intermediate, and grammar grades to the high school. 
The unity of life and the succession of its stages are 
thus subject to organized observation, and afford con- 
crete and certain data for the working out of methods 
adapted to those various changes in the child's evolu- 
tion. 

76 



LATER MOVEMENTS AT OSWEGO. 77 

Since 1881 one hundred and thirty-two students have 
availed themselves of this generous provision, and they 
are now doing efficient work in various sections of our 
country. 

In 1888 nine Normal Schools had added a Kinder- 
garten course to their other courses. 

Oswego started out originally as a purely profes- 
sional training-school, requiring a certain academic 
scholarship as a condition of entrance. This plan was 
early found to be impracticable, because of the character 
of academic work which was presented, as well as the 
small number of pupils possessing the required schol- 
arship. As soon as it became evident that the train- 
ing-school must give the matter as well as the method, 
Oswego added (in 1865) to its one-year professional 
course two English courses, one requiring two years, 
the other three. In 1867 a four-years' classical course 
was added. The last year of these various courses was 
devoted exclusively to professional work. 

In 1890 Dr. Sheldon decided to discontinue the 
teaching of the ancient and modern languages, and to 
use the time and money formerly , given to such teach- 
ing to post-graduate courses, providing academical and 
professional training in more advanced English and 
scientific studies. The advanced professional course for 
those preparing themselves for the positions of critic 
and training-teachers in other Normal Schools has thus 
far served a very useful purpose. Graduates from this 
course are in demand among Normal Schools. Gradu- 



78 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

ates of marked ability are invited by the faculty to take 
this course. 

In 1892 the two-years' elementary course was dropped 
in all of the State Normal Schools of New York. 

From the start the Manual -Training Idea — learning 
by doing — had been a cardinal principle underlying Os- 
wego methods ; and clay modelling, the making of ele- 
mentary scientific apparatus, and the various forms of 
handiwork now familiar in primary schools, occupied a 
considerable portion of the time of the student-teacher. 
Gradually facilities for this work grew until now the 
Oswego school has two large and well-equipped man- 
ual-training work-shops, — one for the four hundred 
children forming the practice school, the other for 
the Normal students proper. The standard jokes on 
woman's difficulties in driving nails and handling saws 
would fall rather flat among Oswego girls. The heavier 
machinery of both shops is run by steam-engines of 
suitable power. 

The allied department of mechanical drawing is ex- 
ceptionally well manned and equipped. Happy are the 
children taught in the, practice-classes at Oswego. They 
get the benefit constantly of the newest and best devel- 
opments in educational method. They were the first to 
experience the joy of emancipation from books and for- 
mulas into the inviting life of bird and rock and smil- 
ing flower ; and many natures here, formerly repressed 
because of a diffident speech and stumbling perceptions 
of spellingbook-inconsistencies and arithmetic puzzles, 



LATER MOVEMENTS AT OSWEGO. 79 

rejoiced to find the industrious hand as expressive in 
its way as the tongue, and to find every growing tree 
and breathing animal an avenue to the knowledge which 
spellingbook and arithmetic kept so far away. In this 
practice-school the first American history that brought 
them face to face with original sources, and gave them 
the privilege of constructing their own philosophy of his- 
tory, saw the light. To them came the first sunny con- 
tact with the Kindergarten as related to the whole plan 
of Normal School work ; and with them, as I write, prob- 
lems are daily being worked out, which being based on 
their own natures and the constitution of the world 
about them, will shorten and make more attractive, 
more accessible, the roads leading to the temple of 
Truth. 1 

Fortunate also the 1900 and more teachers who have 
entered its portals to study life, to follow all stages of 
its development, and to intelligently shape the body of 
knowledge into forms fitted to these stages, so as to get 
it with minimum waste of effort into eager minds ; but 
better than all to have received the benediction, the in- 
spiration, of the life of the man who for thirty-six years 
remained its faithful head. 

1 See An Outline of Nature Study and History and Literature, 
(1896), School of Practice of the Oswego Normal and Training School. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 
DR. E. A. SHELDON. 

No adequate understanding of the spirit and the 
methods of Oswego's development can be had, except 
we put before us, in somewhat clearer light than could 
be done in the preceding pages, the lives of some of the 
men and women who have made it what it is. 

Dr. Sheldon was born in October, 1823, of New Eng- 
land parents, on a farm in Genesee County, N.Y. His 
first school-days were spent at an unattractive district 
school, his own feeling for which may be easily gathered 
from his remark that he had " gone to school to an ash- 
heap." Fortunately for his pedagogical development, 
a wide-awake college-bred man opened an academy at 
the nearest town, and initiated him at seventeen into 
the mysteries of Greek and Latin, algebra and geometry. 
Four years later he entered Hamilton College, purpos- 
ing at the end of his college-course to study law. Ill 
health forced him to leave college at the close of his 
junior year. While at college he was spoken of by his 
instructors as " a young man of intelligence, ability, 
the firmest integrity, and a warm heart," — qualities 
which exhibited the bent of his nature, and led him to 

80 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 81 

interest himself in the philanthropic experiment which 
he began at Oswego, where during the interim he had 
gone to learn the nursery business. The misery and 
poverty of the city slums were a revelation to the young 
man. With him to recognize a condition was to seek 
for a practical remedy. He went among the tenement 
houses, making a record of the things he saw, and with 
this for a text succeeded in getting friends to form an 
" Orphan and Free School Association," which soon 
secured a school, but found dim cul ties in getting the 
right teacher. The enterprise was on the point of being 
abandoned — Mr. Sheldon was just then about to enter 
the Auburn Theological Seminary, but gave up his am- 
bitions to save the orphan school from failure. The 
story of what developed from here on has been sym- 
pathetically told by his daughter, Mrs. Mary Sheldon 
Barnes. 

" When asked what salary he wanted, he said, ' It will 
cost me about two hundred and seventy-five dollars a 
year to live, and this is all I want.' They gave him 
three hundred dollars, and my father entered what 
afterward proved his chosen career. 

" Behold, then, in the early winter of 1848 and 1849, 
the young schoolmaster before his first school. Utterly 
without experience, almost without a plan, he stands 
face to face with one hundred and twenty 'wild Irish 
boys and girls of all ages, from five to twenty-one,' 
utterly rude and untrained. Yet, he says, they gave 
him ' no trouble.' If they engaged in a free fight, it was 



82 THE OSWEGO NOEMAL SCHOOL. 

from ignorance of the proprieties of time and place, not 
from any desire to be ugly ; if some boys became rest- 
less, they were sent out to race around the block and 
see who could be back first. They were called to order 
by rapping on the stovepipe ; they were held in order 
and kept to their work by the genuine love he bore to 
them. I have not been able to find that any case of 
discipline occurred in this rough 4 ragged school.' As 
my father went to his work of a morning, his warm- 
hearted Irish children trooped about him, seizing him 
by the fingers or the coat-tails, wherever they could best 
catch hold, to the great amusement of the storekeepers 
and the passers-by. Saturday morning he spent in pas- 
toral work, that is, in visiting his pupils at home, and 
in seeing that they were not suffering for the neces- 
saries of life. This was the hardest day of his week ; 
and the young schoolmaster usually found himself ex- 
hausted by noon, so great was the draft made on his 
sympathies by ignorance, sickness, incompetence, and 
misfortune. 

" The work could not stop here in my father's mind ; 
and from this beginning . . . sprang in time the organ- 
ization of free and graded schools in Oswego, and the 
establishment of the orphan asylum." 

These developments did not occur without struggle. 
In 1849 Mr. Sheldon married Miss Frances A. B. Stiles, 
and in 1850 opened a private school. This venture did 
not prove a success ; and he applied for and obtained 
the position of superintendent of schools in Syracuse, 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 83 

N.Y. In the two years of his stay he consolidated and 
graded the elementary schools, and began a collection 
of books which formed the nucleus of the present valu- 
able Central Library in Syracuse. He published the first 
annual report ever made to the city schools, and laid 
the plans for what is now one of the finest high schools 
in the State. In 1853 he returned to Oswego, 'this 
time to thoroughly organize a system of graded free 
schools for that city. An evidence of his watchfulness 
and independence are the arithmetic ungraded schools 
and the unclassified school, which were inserted into the 
system to meet the wants of the sailor boys, idle from 
December to April, and of the irregular laboring poor 
who could not adapt themselves to the graded system. 
This was in 1859. Since then similar schools have been 
found indispensable auxiliaries to the public-school sys- 
tem of many cities. Dr. Sheldon's progressive work 
with the Oswego schools, resulting finally in the Oswego 
Normal and Training-School, has been described in 
former pages. The great exertions which he put forth 
to develop the Oswego Normal School, and to gain a 
wide recognition for the Oswego methods, would have 
borne down a man of a less vigorous constitution. 

"But these years of labor," says Mrs. Sheldon Barnes, 
"were, however, also years of honor and recognition. 
It is almost startling to see how instantly the educa- 
tional leaders of the day acknowledged the superiority 
of Oswego methods and ideas. In 1862 my father was 
elected superintendent of the schools in Troy; but he 



84 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

resigned the honor, although the place was more impor- 
tant and central, and the salary larger by some hundreds 
than that he then received, for the simple but sufficient 
reason that he felt that the work in Oswego was not yet 
ripe for an independent life. The books on methods not 
only stirred up teachers throughout our own country, 
but 'had a good sale in England itself ; while the fame 
of the Oswego schools brought to the modest home by 
the lake many an educational pilgrim of distinction." 
In 1867 Dr. Sheldon refused the offer of the principal- 
ship of the Albany Normal and of the Department of 
Pedagogy in the University of Missouri for the same 
conscientious reasons which persuaded him to reject the 
Troy position. Sacrifices of this nature were not always 
appreciated, even by the citizens of Oswego. Apart 
from the opposition Dr. Sheldon had to face, led by Dr. 
Wilbur, the most serious and keenly felt was that in- 
stituted by those for whom he had spent his labors, — 
the people of Oswego themselves. He was accused of 
teaching cruelty to the children in the lessons on in- 
sects ; he was dubbed " Pope " because of his great 
influence with the Board of Education; and now in 1872 
the attack was made all along the line on the whole 
scheme of Pestalozzian instruction. The Board failing 
to yield to the wishes of the reactionists, the fight was 
transferred from it to the public press and local poli- 
tics. Several newspaper extracts preserved by Mrs. 
Sheldon Barnes will serve to show the spirit of some 
of these attacks. 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 85 

" The Pestalozzian propagandists are just now filling the Press 
with interminably long and dreary articles on the ' great under- 
lying principles ' of the i objective methods of teaching.' . . . 
At the election in May the people will have something to say 
about a system by which they have been humbugged out of large 
sums of money and an incalculable amount of time." 

" The tax-payers of Oswego will see to it that their schools shall 
be run in the interests of sound, practical education, and not . . . 
to build fortunes of book-publishing rings and Pestalozzian mono- 
maniacs." 

" We have yet to find a person not directly interested in the 
profits of 'the system' who does not agree with us that read- 
ing, writing, English grammar, arithmetic, and geography — and 
those branches only — should be taught in the public shools at 
public expense." 

Three years before this onslaught Dr. Sheldon had 
resigned his place as superintendent of the Oswego 
schools that he might give his whole time to the Nor- 
mal School. Thus the attack was not personally- against 
him as superintendent; but he felt it none the less 
keenly as being directed against the reform which he 
initiated, and which was his life. The reactionists 
gained the day, and for several years the old regime of 
the text-book and the narrow gauged cheerless curricu- 
lum attempted to take the place of the subjects and 
methods characteristic of the New Education. The 
high school was abolished. The change only served to 
bring into stronger relief the real merits of the objective 
studies. For many years Oswego methods and Oswego 
graduates have held possession of the Oswego public 



86 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

schools. To-day the city superintendent is an Oswego 
graduate, as are all but two or three of the seventy or 
more teachers under his direction. In 1880 the long 
years of toil brought on poor health, and Dr. Sheldon 
offered to resign as principal of the Normal School. The 
Board would not listen to it, granted him a year or two 
of rest, and insisted upon continuing his salary. The 
faculty divided his work among themselves. These 
evidences of the real feeling of the people toward him 
materially aided his recovery. In 1881 he reassumed 
his principalship with the old-time vigor. That year 
he made the kindergarten an organic part of the train- 
ing furnished by the Normal School. In 1869 Hamil- 
ton College conferred upon him the degree of A.M., 
and in 1875 the Regents of the University of New York 
added Ph.D. 

The contribution which the Oswego Normal has made 
to American pedagogy is certainly a sufficient work for 
any one life ; yet Dr. Sheldon was not oblivious to edu- 
cational questions — especially in his native State — 
which did not distinctly concern the Oswego school. 

For many years Dr. Sheldon earnestly though pa- 
tiently labored to secure the abolishment of the double- 
headed system of educational control in New York State. 
The difference which has often existed between the 
Board of Regents of the State and the Department of 
Public Instruction has long made this a desirable con- 
summation. In 1874 Dr. Sheldon secured the co-ope- 
ration of the normal-school principals of the State, who 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 87 

sent him and Dr. M. Mc Vicar to Albany to accomplish 
if possible a unification of all the educational interests 
of the State. Dr. Sheldon made an address, which has 
been published, outlining his plan for unification, before 
the Association of School Commissioners and Superinten- 
dents of the State. The plan was simple, and approved 
by the Board of Regents itself, the State superinten- 
dent, and a conference of prominent educators of the 
State. Notwithstanding all of this indorsement the bill 
was killed by purely political influences. Dr. Sheldon, 
nothing daunted, made another attempt at the time of 
Mr. Draper's election to the office of State Superinten- 
dent, but failed to secure his co-operation. His last 
effort was made before the recent constitutional conven- 
tion of the State, but political forces again conspired to 
repress a measure which nearly every one conceded to 
be good and worthy of adoption. With his accustomed 
optimism, however, Dr. Sheldon said recently : " Great 
good, however, has grown out of the movement. It 
has tended to bring together and relate the educational 
work of the State, and effect a good state of feeling 
between the educational men belonging to the two de- 
partments. In this way a great gain has been made, 
and so I feel that my work has not been altogether 
vain." 

Another movement inaugurated by Dr. Sheldon has 
shown more tangible results. In 1888 Dr. Sheldon 
read a plea before the Regents' Convocation at Albany 
for the establishment of a system of elementary training- 



88 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

schools as the lowest grade of a system of professional 
State schools, of which the then eleven regular Normal 
Schools would be the next higher grade, and a thorough- 
going university school of pedagogy would complete the 
series. The Association of Academic Principals ap- 
pointed a committee, of which Dr. Sheldon was chair- 
man, to report on elementary training-schools. The 
result of this effort was, that the teachers' classes, which 
were in the academies under the direction of the Board 
of Regents, were put in the control of the Department 
of Public Instruction, and they are now making steady 
improvement with promise of greater things. 

The other aim of Dr. Sheldon's — that of limiting 
the work of Normal Schools to professional work with 
subjects distinctively below college grade, leaving the 
pedagogical instruction of college students to the peda- 
gogical departments in the universities — does not meet 
with favor on the part of the normal-school men of the 
State, since the plan would necessitate a giving up on 
their part of some academic features in their present 
courses with which they do not like to part. The uni- 
versities, however, favor the notion, and the present 
State superintendent indorses it. It is very probable 
that Cornell will soon organize such a department. 

To recount the various addresses made by Dr. Shel- 
don before educational bodies, State and national, and 
papers written for different occasions, would transcend 
the limits of this sketch. In another place a list of 
some of these which have been printed are given, to- 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 89 

gether with his books on object teaching. His Manual 
of Elementary Instruction and Lessons on Objects were 
the first books in this country which were the results 
of practical and successful application of Pestalozzian 
principles, and were of great value as practical guides 
to those interested in applying the work of the great 
Swiss reformer. Shortly after their publication, Hon. 
Henry Barnard, then United States Commissioner of 
Education, wrote of them, in connection with others 
which followed : — 

" In looking over the Manual of Object Teaching, Lessons on 
Objects, Primary Object Lessons, Oral Lessons on Social Science, 
Outlines of a System of Object Teaching, Child's Book of Nature, 
Model Lessons, etc., published within the last two years, we are 
more than ever satisfied that the world moves. 

At the recent Buffalo meeting of the National Edu- 
cational Association, Dr. Sheldon, who had read an 
address, was recognized as the Nestor of the profession ; 
an opinion which was but a re-expression of that voiced 
by the World's Fair officials at Chicago, who made him 
the president of the Department of Professional Train- 
ing of Teachers, probably the highest honor that could 
come to him in his chosen field. At the close of the 
Fair they capped the climax by awarding his school the 
Medal of Honor and Diploma for its long and useful 
career under one principal. 1 

As a man Dr. Sheldon was universally loved. Those 

1 See foot-note on next page. 



90 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

who sometimes opposed him in policy praised him in life. 
Even the warm enemies of early days now acknowledge 
themselves his warm admirers ; and with the open book 
of his long life record before them, critics of former 
days see the mistakes of their own interpretation, and 
the absolute purity of his motives. Dr. Sheldon's char- 
acter was a singular combination of simplicity and of 
strength. Innate nobleness and kindness gleamed from 
every feature of his fine gray head. I know of no 
student of his now living who did not regard him as a 
personal friend, and none whom he did not delight to 
call " children of my household." His beautiful home 
by the shore of Lake Ontario, now no longer graced by 
the presence of his devoted wife, but recently deceased, 
was always wide open to his students ; and the trees he 
loved are now fragrant with hallowed memories of his 
generosity. 

This account of Dr. Sheldon's life had scarcely been 
completed when the sad news flashed across the country 
of his death. Aug. 5 I received his last suggestions re- 
garding this work ; and on Aug. 28 his great soul, even 

The words of the award are as follows : — 

FOR EXCELLENCE OF EQUIPMENT, METHOD, WORK, 
AND WIDE USEFULNESS THROUGHOUT ITS LONG HISTORY 
UNDER ONE PRINCIPAL. FOR EXCELLENCE OF EDUCA- 
TIONAL METHODS AND LITERATURE AS EVIDENCED 6Y 
THEIR USE IN THE UNITED STATES. 

In his report for the Bureau of Education in 1893, Dr. Eaton gave 
the Oswego exhibit first place among the normal schools of New York, 
and emphasized the work it had done in bringing the Pestalozzian prin- 
ciples and methods to America. 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 91 

according to his own dying wish, went to be with Christ, 
to live the larger life. He died in accord with his oft- 
expressed desire, with the harness on. The beginning 
of his thirty-seventh year as principal of the Oswego 
Normal and Training-School was but a few days off, and 
he was in the midst of preparation for it. The night 
before he died he discussed school affairs with a member 
of the Department of Education, and it is said that but 
forty-five minutes before his death he was conversing 
with a young man who called to see him about school 
matters. The immediate cause of death was heart 
disease. The end came suddenly, but did not find him 
unprepared. There was scarcely an hour's warning, but 
Dr. Sheldon recognized it at once. There were pres- 
ent with him then his son, Professor Charles S. Sheldon, 
and wife, and Dr. Sheldon's sister, Miss Dorliska E. 
Sheldon. Mr. Charles Sheldon, in a letter just received, 
has lifted the curtain of that hallowed death chamber. 
It discloses the great end of a great soul. Mr. Sheldon 
writes : — 

" A few moments before his death, while his lungs were filling, 
and we all felt that the next breath might be his last, a heavenly 
radiance lighting his face, he whispered, < ^Yith mother,' then, a 
moment later, 'with mother and Christ.' His own life had been 
so bound up in hers [his wife's] that when he was left alone, after 
she had passed away, he seemed to be leading a life of waiting. 
Within about five minutes after these last words, he passed peace- 
fully away." 

Dr. Sheldon is survived by five children : Mrs. Mary 



92 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Sheldon Barnes, formerly of Leland Stanford Univer- 
sity, now in Europe ; Professor Charles Stiles Sheldon 
of the Oswego Normal School ; Mrs. Frances Elizabeth 
Ailing of Chicago; Mrs. Anna Bradford Howe, and 
Mrs. Laura Austin Inman, both of Indianapolis, Ind. 
An only sister, Miss Dorliska Elizabeth Sheldon, made 
her home with her illustrious brother during the last 
twelve years. 

When the news got out the morning Dr. Sheldon 
died, the city that had known him half a centur}^ seemed 
stunned. The editor of the Oswego Daily Palladium 
wrote : — 

" The city of Oswego is in the midst of a profound sorrow to- 
day. One who was enshrined in the hearts of all its people, from 
the humblest to the proudest, from the highest to the lowest, is 
no more. No man in all this community was ever more beloved 
than Dr. Sheldon. ~No announcement could have brought a ruder 
shock than that which told of his sudden death this morning. In 
the presence of a grief that touches every heart, the editorial pen 
falters." 

The Oswego Daily Times called his " life so blameless 
and akin to worth and goodness that evil seemed no 
part of his pure and exceptional nature. All knew him, 
all loved him, and all will mourn his departure with a 
unanimity and depth of feeling that is or could be the 
tribute of but few. Beyond the immediate neighbor- 
hood of his daily rounds and toil he will be missed and 
mourned, as well by the thousands who in the past have 
come within the sphere of his personal influence, and 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 93 

carried away with them to distant parts — to every State 
in the Union, and to lands even beyond the seas — the 
inspiration of that influence, whose fruit always was and 
will be the enlightenment and advancement of humanity. 
His loss to the educational forces, not of the State alone, 
nor yet of the whole country, but generally throughout 
the world, cannot easily be repaired, — a field in which 
few have labored longer, more assiduously, or achieved 
more valuable and marked results." 

The way in which Dr. Sheldon's character had pen- 
etrated every portion of the community is signally 
shown in an incident stated at the funeral by the Rev. 
Mr. Wills : — 

" You will pardon this, I know. A woman in the common 
walks of life paused the morning of the doctor's death in front of 
the school ; and seeing there the evidences of mourning, and hav- 
ing ascertained the cause, there upon the corner of the street she 
bowed her head and wept copiously and audibly." 

The funeral was a great demonstration of Dr. Shel- 
don's hold upon Oswego and the educational life of the 
State. One nearly full-paged account opened as fol- 
lows : — 

" The vast throng, representing all classes and conditions of 
life, which filled Grace Church yesterday afternoon indicated 
plainer than words the esteem and love in which Dr. Edward A. 
Sheldon, late principal of the Oswego State Normal and Train- 
ing-School was held by the citizens of Oswego. Xo such out- 
pouring has been seen here in years." 



94 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Floral tributes came from the Department of Educa- 
tion, the local teachers, and his own faculty. The 
same account states that " a large number of the city 
officials, including members of the Common Council, 
Department of Education, Department of Works, De- 
partment of Charity . . . occupied seats in the church, 
as did two hundred school-teachers. 

Among the distinguished educators present were 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Charles R. 
Skinner of Albany; Dr. James M. Cassidy, Principal 
of the Buffalo State Normal School; Dr. T. B. Stowell, 
Principal of Potsdam State Normal School; Dr. Mc- 
Yicker, formerly Principal of Potsdam Normal, and a 
warm personal friend of Dr. Sheldon. 

Dr. Sheldon's death called forth appreciative notices 
from the press at large, and letters and telegrams of 
sympathy poured in upon the stricken sister and chil- 
dren from all parts of the country. Among them was 
this telegram from Colonel Parker of the Chicago Nor- 
mal : — 

" Regret exceedingly that I cannot be present at the last sad 
rites. I have loved Dr. Sheldon for many years. This divine 
spirit will live and grow forever in the hearts of a free people. 
While we shall miss him and deeply mourn his loss, let us thank 
God for a long and glorious life filled with righteousness. 

Francis W. Parker." 

The Local Board of the Oswego State Normal and 
Training-School held a special meeting the Saturday 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 95 

after Dr. Sheldon's death to pay tributes to his mem- 
ory. Two of its members, Hon. Theodore Irwin and 
Mr. Gilbert Mollison, were members of the original 
Board, organized by Dr. Sheldon twenty-seven years 
before. Addresses were made by the above-mentioned 
gentlemen; and suitable resolutions were drawn by a 
committee composed of Judge J. C. Churchill, Hon. 
Theodore Irwin, and Hon. A. S. Page. The addresses 
and resolutions were published in the Oswego papers, 
and expressed in eloquent words the great services 
Dr. Sheldon had rendered to the city, the State, and 
the nation. 

The Oswego Teachers' Association held a memorial 
session on Saturday, Oct. 2, at which strong addresses 
were made by men and women who had been associated 
with Dr. Sheldon in his educational labors. Professor 
C. W. Richards, principal of the Oswego High School, 
presided. The addresses made by Hon. George B. 
Sloan and Professor Amos W. Farnham were published 
in the daily papers. 

The tributes which have attracted the widest atten- 
tion were read at a memorial exercise held in Normal 
Hall, Oswego, Thursday evening, Oct. 21. 

The following addresses were delivered at that 
time : — 

The Life and Character of Dr. Sheldon. 

Professor I. B. Poucher. 

Dr. Sheldon as We Knew Him. 

Miss Serita L. Stewart. 



96 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Dr. Sheldon's Influence on Education in New York. 

Hon. C. R. Skinner, LL.D. 

State Supt. of Public Instruction. 

The Place of Dr. Sheldon in the Educational World. 

Lewis H. Jones, A.M. 

Supt. of Schools, Cleveland, Ohio. 

Dr. Sheldon and the Church. 

Rev. David Wills, Jr. 

The scholarly addresses of Hon. C. R. Skinner and Superintend- 
ent L. H. Jones are given at length in the next chapter, as is also 
an extended extract from the address of Professor Poucher, the 
nearly life-long associate and present successor of Dr. Sheldon. 

SOME ASSOCIATES OF DR. SHELDON. 

Some reference has already been made to Professor 
Hermann Kriisi, who, with Miss M. E. M. Jones of Eng- 
land, brought the Pestalozzian torch from the Old World 
to the New. Hermann Kriisi was a Pestalozzian by birth, 
having been born in Yverdon, Switzerland, the place 
of Pestalozzi's famous school. His father, who was a 
teacher in Pestalozzi's school, subsequently established 
a normal school at Gais ; and in this school Hermann 
received his early education, supplementing it later by 
studies in Dresden and Berlin during the years 1835 
to 1838. For a time he assisted his father at Gais; 
but on the death of the latter accepted a position in 
Dr. Mayo's School, Cheam, near London. Subsequently 
he became a teacher in the Home and Colonial School, 
London, where he arranged his famous courses in inven- 
tive drawing, a work which was soon introduced into 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 97 

America. It was considerably elaborated at Oswego, 
and became for many years the most popular series of 
drawing-books in the country. 

At the invitation of Professor Wm. Russell, in 1852 
he came to America to work in Professor Russell's pri- 
vate normal school at Lancaster, Mass. ; and it was here 
he wrote his valuable book on perspective. As regular 
lecturer before the Massachusetts State institutes he 
became associated with his distinguished countrymen, 
Agassiz and Guyot, and other prominent educators. 
Professor Kriisi's lectures in several States, and publi- 
cations on drawing, were revelations to the people at 
large of the real value of drawing in the schools. In 
1857 he became a teacher in the Trenton (N.J.) State 
Normal School; from here he received his call to 
Oswego, and here at Oswego he remained for twenty- 
five years a faithful and efficient exponent of his noted 
fellow-countryman, Pestalozzi. His first work at Os- 
wego was straight to the point. It was the adaptation 
of the Pestalozzian principles to the work in number, 
form, and drawing in the Oswego schools. 

Professor Kriisi applied his inventive system to the 
teaching of geometry and philosophy, which were taught 
without books, guiding himself by the reason and inven- 
tive skill of his students. "While at Oswego Professor 
Kriisi published his Life of Pestalozzi, which enjoyed 
a wide sale, and for many years was the only life of 
Pestalozzi accessible to English readers. 

Professor Kriisi's work is thus a most important factor 



98 THE OSWEGO KOBMAL SCHOOL. 

in the development of Pestalozzian principles on this 
continent ; especially can his personality never be effaced 
from Oswego history. His manner of presentation was 
clear and logical, but withal charmingly frank, and a 
genial humor constantly played about the topic of the 
hour. After a short visit to the old home, Professor 
Kriisi is again in America, enjoying the rest his eminent 
labors have doubly earned for him. 

Miss Matilda S. Cooper (now Mrs. I. B. Poucher) 
was graduated from the Albany Normal in 1856. She 
was immediately employed in the Oswego schools, and 
on the organization of the city training-school was 
appointed one of the critic teachers, an appointment 
which illustrates one valuable characteristic of Dr Shel- 
don's ; namely, the power to recognize a true teacher. 
The fact that she remained identified with the Oswego 
Normal School twenty-five years illustrates another and 
perhaps rarer power of Dr. Sheldon's ; namely, the 
ability to hold on to the true teacher. So also her 
husband, Professor Poucher, has put, with the excep- 
tion of some short absences, forty-nine years of his 
life into the Oswego schools. Professor Kriisi, we 
have just seen, remained at his post twenty-five years ; 
and Dr. Lee, of whom we shall speak later, was re- 
tained until her death, eighteen years. 

The training Miss Cooper had received, combined 
with direct and conclusive habits of thought, enabled 
her to take vigorous hold on the new principles, and 
make them yield clearly formulated logical results. Of 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. W 

Miss Cooper's work Professor Aber wrote a few years 
ago : — 

" To the careful and unremitting drill of her method and prac- 
tice-school work is largely due the fact that the Oswego Normal 
School has turned out so large a product of successful teachers as 
compared with her production of mere talkers and essay writers. 
No one else deserves so much credit for this as Miss Cooper. The 
maxims, The idea before the word, The concrete before the 
abstract, One step at a time, Never tell the child what he can find 
out for himself, were constantly applied by her as the plumb-line 
and try-square to test all work. Her method of inculcating prin- 
ciples and teaching the art of questioning was philosophical." 

To which Dr. Sheldon adds in response to an in- 
quiry : — 

" Mr. and Mrs. Poucher have been with us from the time of the 
organization of the school, and perhaps know better than any other 
persons now living its source and development." 

Professor Isaac B. Poucher, Dr. Sheldon's successor, 
has had a long and honorable share in Oswego's growth. 
He was graduated from the Albany Normal in 1847, 
and the next year began his career in Oswego in what 
was known as the " red schoolhouse." The fashion in 
the color of schoolhouses must have changed soon after 
that, for his next school-teaching was done in the 
" yellow schoolhouse." 

From here Professor Poucher was promoted to the 
principalship of the Oswego Academy, which occupied 
the site of the present high school. In 1852 the 



100 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

young professor decided to exchange his profession for 
that of medicine, and to that end resigned his principal- 
ship, and matriculated in the medical department of the 
University of New York. At the close of the first six 
months' course of lectures Mr. Poucher resumed his 
former work at the academy, purposing to return to 
New York in October. But fate ruled otherwise ; for 
agreeing temporarily to take the place of a sick teacher, 
upon the death of the teacher Professor Poucher was 
prevailed upon to continue his work, and in 1855 was 
installed in a new school building as associate principal 
with Mr. Douglass. In 1859 he was called upon to 
christen another new school building ; and here he was 
allowed to remain until Dr. Sheldon selected him, in 
1867, for principal of the Oswego Normal Practice 
School, and instructor in mathematics. Professor 
Poucher proved himself in his element in the chair of 
mathematics, and made his department one of the 
strongest in the normal school. He applied the Pesta- 
lozzian principles to mathematical instruction along the 
lines marked out by Professor Kriisi, — dispensing 
with text-books in both algebra and geometry, work- 
ing out with the student independently and with rigid 
logic his own text-book. Students of his always speak 
of the convincing clearness with which he developed 
a line of mathematical reasoning. His syllabus of arith- 
metic is a good example of this. 

In 1885 Professor Poucher was appointed Collector 
of United States Customs at the port of Oswego, but on 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. * 101 

leaving that position resumed his old work in the nor- 
mal school. Professor Poucher was always very popular 
with the normal students, and his general pedagogical 
as well as business ability made him equally respected 
in the faculty. Dr. Sheldon and the Board soon came 
to rely upon him in times of emergency; and during a 
two years' absence of Dr. Sheldon, Professor Poucher 
was installed acting principal. His recent unanimous 
appointment by the Local Board of the Oswego Normal 
School as Dr. Sheldon's successor, and its immediate 
approval by the State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, was not entirely unexpected, and has been received 
with universal satisfaction by the alumni and students 
of the Oswego Normal School. 

In 1858 Professor Poucher married Miss Katharine 
L. Allen, by whom he had three children, — W. Allen, 
Katharine M., and Lucy Augusta. W. Allen Poucher 
has been Special Deputy Collector of Customs of the 
District of Oswego, N.Y. Miss Katharine M. Poucher 
is now Mrs. E. W. McColm of Columbus, Ohio. Miss 
Lucy Augusta Poucher is now Mrs. Albert E. Nettleton 
of Syracuse, N.Y. Professor Poucher's wife died in 
December, 1881. 

In 1890 Professor Poucher married Miss M. S. 
Cooper, and thus very fittingly brought together two 
lives that had long been engaged in a common work for 
the institution of which he has just now become the 
honored head. 

Dr. Mary Y. Lee was one of the most original, posi- 



102 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

tive, and at the same time charming personalities 
connected with the Oswego Movement. She was 
graduated in 1860 from the New Britain (Conn.) Nor- 
mal School, and in the spring of 1862 was selected by 
State Superintendent Camp to go to Oswego to learn the 
Pestalozzian methods. In the fall of the same year, in 
company with Mrs. Mary E. McGonegal, she opened 
the Davenport (Iowa) Training-School for teachers, 
under the direction of Superintendent Kissel. u In 
the spring of 1865 she became Professor W. F. Phelps's 
first assistant in the normal school of Winona, Minn. 
While in Minnesota she often attended institutes and 
Sunday-school conventions, where she gave lessons. 
These lessons led to a memorable summer spent with 
the great preacher D. L. Moody, who brought her to 
Illinois that she might give before bodies of Sunday- 
school teachers lessons taught in accord with Pesta- 
lozzian principles." At Winona Dr. Lee wrote a gram- 
mar based upon Pestalozzian methods, published as 
Lee and Hartley's Grammar. In 1874 she was gradu- 
ated from the Medical Department of Michigan Univer- 
sity, and immediately became the teacher of physiology 
at her alma mater, the Oswego Normal School, "prac- 
tising medicine as school duties would permit." In 
1880 she went abroad with Miss Mary D. Sheldon, 
spending two years in visiting in Great Britain and on 
the Continent. The last year she was an "out student" 
at Cambridge University, devoting her time to physi- 
ology and biology. Upon her return to America she 




Dr. MARY V. LEE. 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 103 

resumed the teaching of Physiology, and worked out 
rational methods of teaching zoology, botany, the human 
body, and reading. About this time Dr. Lee became 
convinced of the merits of the Delsarte system of physi- 
cal culture, and successfully introduced it at Oswego. 
She died at her post in the summer of 1892, having 
been a teacher at Oswego eighteen years. 

Such in bare outline is the record of a life remarkable 
alike for its strong convictions and its openness to truth. 
Her thought and its expression were strikingly direct 
and original, and her audiences were never bored by 
dull speaking. This characteristic brought her in fre- 
quent demand as a public speaker upon educational and 
other topics which won her sympathies ; for Dr. Lee was 
many sided in her interests, leaning especially to those 
which she believed made for righteousness in individual 
and national character. She gave up a lucrative prac- 
tice in medicine, and rejected many tempting offers, it is 
said, that she might annually have the opportunity of 
impressing those who were to be the instructors of youth 
with the importance of maintaining pure bodies, free from 
the tyranny of fashion, of drink, and of narcotics. Dr. 
Lee possessed the kindest of hearts, and was prodi- 
gal of time and affection to those in need, as hun- 
dreds of Oswego students would gladly testify. Her 
memory is most fittingly kept green at Oswego by the 
Dr. Lee Memorial Fund, which provides aid to worthy 
students and occasional lectures to the whole student 
body. 



104 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Professor H. H. Straight deserves a place in Oswego 
history for his philosophical work with the natural 
sciences, accomplished first at Oswego, and later at the 
Cook County Normal. He left Oberlin a young theo- 
logical student somewhat experienced in teaching, to be- 
come the principal of the State Normal School at Peru, 
Neb. Reversing the course proclaimed by the poet, 
instead of nature's leading him to nature's God, his 
study of God had led him to nature ; and at Peru he 
resigned the principalship that he might devote himself 
to the problem of working out rational methods for 
teaching science in the chair of natural science and 
psychology in that institution. Shortly after this Pro- 
fessor Straight went to school to Agassiz, who straight- 
way became his controlling inspiration. In 1875 he 
accompanied Professor N. S. Shaler of Harvard, and the 
State geologist of North Carolina, in several geological 
expeditions. The following two years were spent in 
special study at Cornell and Harvard. In 1878 he 
accepted the chair of natural sciences in the Oswego 
Normal School. Here he planned the excellent sys- 
tem of laboratories with which the Oswego Normal is 
equipped, and here he proved conclusively the practica- 
bility of experimental work in large classes. At Oswego 
Professor Straight's pedagogical insight gave him the 
entire charge of the practice school, and later he taught 
classes in history and philosophy of education. This 
range of work enabled him to see beyond the boun- 
daries of the natural sciences, and to perceive clearly, 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 105 

what the schools are but beginning to recognize through 
Herbart's pedagogy, that nature is a unity, and all sub- 
jects of study have vital relations with one another. 
His work at Oswego in this line was several years in 
advance of the Herbartian wave in this country. Pro- 
fessor Straight was a popular lecturer, and frequently 
gave courses of lectures at Martha's Vineyard ; Froebel 
Academy, Brooklyn ; Summer School of Science, Salem, 
Mass.; and other places. 

His work in the Cook County Normal may be judged 
by the opinion of Colonel Parker, who said that the 
most perfect primary teaching he has ever seen was 
done under the direction of Professor Straight. Profes- 
sor Straight's legacy must be the direct inspirations he 
gave to his pupils at the various centres where his influ- 
ence was felt. But a small portion of his actual work 
found its way into print. He did not care for fame or 
money. He died Nov. 17, 1886. His wife, Mrs. Emma 
Dickerman Straight, shared her husband's pedagogical 
zeal and skill, having taught with marked success in 
the Nebraska State Normal School, the Oswego Normal, 
the Cook County Normal, and in the schools of Tokio, 
Japan. She died in 1890. 

There are many others whose work in the perfecting 
and spread of the Oswego methods deserves fuller treat- 
ment, but of whom only brief mention can be made here. 

The general method and spirit of Miss Cooper's work 
in the method and practice department at Oswego was 
admirably retained in the superior work of Miss S. J. 



106 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Walter, who was connected with the Oswego practice 
schools for nearly twenty-five years, and from 1881 to 
1894 was the efficient principal of the consolidated 
practice schools. She is at present occupying a similar 
position in the State Normal School at Willimantic, 
Conn., and has recently published her latest thought 
upon arithmetic teaching, a line of work which she de- 
veloped with great clearness and force in the Oswego 
practice schools. 

In recent years Miss Margaret K. Smith of the class 
of '83 has done some important work in the later devel- 
opments of the psychological side of Pestalozzi's work, 
especially through Herbart. Upon her graduation Miss 
Smith taught a while at Atlanta University. The book 
published from the results of her work here has already 
been mentioned. 1 Later Miss Smith was called to take 
the chair of school of economy and methods in the State 
Normal at Peru, Neb. In 1885 she went to Germany 
to study systems of pedagogy. Two years later she 
became teacher of psychology at the Oswego institution. 

In 1892, at the solicitation of Dr. AVilliam Harris, 
United States Commissioner of Education, Miss Smith 
translated Herbart's Psychology into English for the 
International Educational Series, of which Dr. Harris 
is the editor. It was the first English translation of 
that important work, and contributed its share to the 
present interest in Herbart in this country. Miss Smith 
has also translated a work on industrial education for 

1 De Graff and Smith's Development Lessons, 




Professor EARL BARNES. 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 107 

the D. C. Heath Publishing Company; and she was also 
one of the translators of Lang's Apperception, published 
by the same firm. Miss Smith has done her share of 
writing for the magazines, and contributes book reviews 
to the School Review published at Chicago University. 
At present she is at work in psychology and history in 
the University of Gottingen, Germany. 

Mention has already been made in these pages of the 
work of Earl Barnes, '84, and Mary Sheldon Barnes, 
'69. 

The following account of Professor Earl Barnes is 
taken from an educational journal: — 

" Earl Barnes, professor of education in the Leland Stanford 
Jr. University, was born near Oswego, N.Y., in 1861. He was 
educated in the common country and village schools, and gradu- 
ated from the advanced course in the Oswego Normal School as 
president of his class in 1884. Meantime he had had two years' 
experience ki teaching country and village schools. After gradu- 
ating from Oswego he taught for two years in a German academy 
at Hoboken, N". J., and then entered Cornell University as a special 
student in American history. While a student in Cornell Uni- 
versity he went abroad with his wife, Mary Sheldon Barnes, 
author of Sheldon's series of histories, and spent a year gather- 
ing historical materials for President Andrew D. White, and study- 
ing in the University of Zurich. After his return to Cornell, and 
while still an undergraduate, he was tendered the professorship 
of European history in Indiana State University. While teach- 
ing in Indiana he took his A. B. degree with the class of 1890. 
The year after he was given leave of absence, and spent the year 
in Cornell University doing postgraduate work, taking his A. M. 
degree at the end of the year. 



108 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

" When the Leland Stanford Jr. University was established in 
California, Mr. Barnes was one of the original fifteen men selected 
by Dr. Jordan to begin the work in that institution ; and the de- 
partment of education which he has built up there is now one of 
the most nourishing in the United States. During the last three 
years Mr. Barnes has become generally known through his stud- 
ies on children, though his strongest work is along the lines of 
the history of civilization." 

Shortly after her graduation, Miss Sheldon entered 
Michigan University, taking largely scientific studies. 
She graduated here in 1874. And now, to use Miss 
Sheldon's original words, she was " greatly disappointed 
at being invited to return to Oswego to teach Latin, 
Greek, botany, and history, instead of a range of 
sciences ; revenges herself by applying scientific meth- 
ods to history ; becomes interested in her revenge, and 
projects a book, ' O that mine enemy would write a 
book ! ' determines to devote herself to completing this 
idea." In 1876 she accepted the chair of history at 
Wellesley College, and in 1880 entered Cambridge 
University, England, to study modern history under 
Professor. J. R. Seeley. In 1882 Miss Sheldon became 
the teacher of history and literature at Oswego, where 
she finally worked out and published Studies in General 
History (D. C. Heath, Boston), which, notwithstanding 
its radical departures from conventional school histories, 
and the difficult nature of the work it demands of stu- 
dents as opposed to the time-honored memory work, 
still enjoys an increasing popularity, and was the pio- 




Mrs. MARY SHELDON BARNES. 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. 109 

neer in a growing movement which is already influen- 
cing both the writing and teaching of history in this 
country. Since her marriage to Mr. Earl Barnes in 
1884, Mrs. Barnes has studied at Cornell University, 
and spent a year abroad in collecting material for Pres- 
ident White. In 1891 she published Studies in Ameri- 
can History along lines similar to those followed in her 
earlier text-book. She is now assistant professor of 
history at Leland Stanford, where her husband is pro- 
fessor of education. 1 

Miss Mary R. Ailing, class of '69 (now Mrs. Mary R. 
Alling-Aber), has had a varied and useful pedagogical 
career, principally in normal schools. In 1870 she 
was principal of the practice department of the city 
Normal and Training-School, Cincinnati, Ohio. For 
three years subsequently she taught in the Oswego 
Normal. In 1875 she spent a year on the faculty of 
the Cook County Normal School under Professor Par- 
ker. In 1880 she taught in the State Normal School 
at Providence, R.I. ; and the next three years were spent 
as principal of the primary department of Miss Shaw's 
school, Boston. It was in connection with this school 
that Miss Ailing conducted an experiment in education 
which attracted considerable attention. An account of 
it can be found in the preface to her book, The Chil- 
dren's Own Work, and in two articles in the Popular 
Science Monthly (1890) on "An Experiment in Edu- 

1 Professor Earl Barnes and his wife have left their work at Leland 
Stanford for further study in Europe. 



110 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

cation." Miss Ailing has been a frequent contributor 
to the New England Journal of Education. Her writ- 
ings have lately been collected, and form the main sub- 
stance of a book : now in the press of Harper Brothers, 
and which promises to be an interesting contribution to 
the pedagogy of the year. In 1884 Miss Ailing married 
Mr. William M. Aber, also an Oswego graduate, who is 
now at the head of the department of Latin and Greek 
in the University of Montana. Professor Aber's article 
in the Popular Science Monthly for May, 1893, on "The 
Oswego State Normal School," has been freely drawn 
on for this sketch. 

Miss Mary E. Laing, class of '74, has represented Os- 
wego ideas in the normal schools of St. Cloud, Minn., 
and Platteville, Wis. The justly celebrated Froebel 
Academy, Brooklyn, is her creation. Miss Laing has 
studied psychology and pedagogy in Zurich, Jena, and 
Gbttingen. Her work in child study has been described 
in the May, 1894, Forum. At present Miss Laing is 

1 This book, An Experiment in Education, has just appeared, and is 
attracting unusual attention. 

" An Experiment in Education, by Mary R. Alling-Aber (244 pp. 
Si. 25), possesses unusual interest. — interest like that awakened by Mrs. 
Aiken's Methods of Mind Training. ... If these results are made out, 
and they seem to us made out, the work of our elementary schools ought 
to be entirely recast, so as to embody in them the ideas presented in this 
volume. This statement alone will be sufficient to justify the plea with 
which the volume concludes, — for the establishment of educational ex- 
periment stations. This volume, though small in size, seems to us one 
of the most valuable and stimulating which. has appeared in a long 
time." — Wisconsin Journal of Education, edited by Dr. J. W. Stearns 
of the University of Wisconsin. 



PERSONALITIES IN THE OSWEGO MOVEMENT. Ill 

successfully carrying out her views in this interesting 
field at Oswego, where she is teacher of psychology 
and pedagogy. 

Lady graduates from Oswego have frequently been 
pioneers in securing recognition for their sex as school 
officers. One lady graduate of the first class served five 
years as county superintendent in Washington Terri- 
tory, and five years as member of the Territorial Board 
of Education. Another lady graduate has been super- 
intendent of public schools of Iowa City, Iowa. Still 
another was State institute conductor of Minnesota. 
Lady graduates of Oswego have served as county super- 
intendents in New York State, while a recent lady grad- 
uate was a member of the State Council of Nebraska. 

These life sketches show in concrete fashion how 
Oswego has influenced the art of teaching in even 
remote sections of our country, and also that her grad- 
uates are growing people, — men and women who fre- 
quently stop right in the midst of successful teaching 
to study again in the best schools at home and abroad. 
This characteristic is an important one, and speaks well 
for the kind of ideals established at Alma Mater. 



CHAPTER VII. 

EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES 

Delivered at a Memorial Exercise held in Honor of 
Dr. Sheldon, at Oswego, N.Y., Oct. 21, 1897. 

dr. Sheldon's influence on education in 

NEW YORK. 

Hon. Charles R. Skinner, New York State Superintendent of 
Public Instruction. 

For more than half a century Edward Austin Sheldon 
gave himself, body, soul, and spirit, to the work of edu- 
cation. Courageous, sincere, enthusiastic, patient, per- 
severing, he overcame difficulties, removed obstacles, 
won victories, where others with judgment less cool, 
with zeal less intense, would have been disheartened and 
driven from the field. We rejoice that these fifty years 
of service were given to education in our own State, and 
that we are the inheritors of the fruit of his labors. 



Loving friends have told us the charming story of his 
useful life. They have told us of his Puritan birth, of 
his home and its congenial surroundings, of his early 
struggles, his college longings and experience, — how 
he came to Oswego to meet his first discouragement in 

112 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 113 

business ; how he became interested in the free-school 
movement which he was compelled to abandon; how 
he organized the schools of Syracuse, and gave them an 
impetus they still feel ; how he was called back to Os- 
wego by the free-school party ; how he laid his plans 
for advanced instruction in the principles and methods of 
teaching ; how in spite of fierce opposition and ridicule 
he steadfastly interested State and country in object- 
teaching, and established it forever as a mighty force 
in education; how, believing in patriotic citizenship, 
he offered his services to his country to preserve the 
Union which he loved; how his plans developed into 
a school for the training of primary teachers ; how the 
Legislature came to his aid in 1862 through the sym- 
pathy of the State superintendent; how in 1867 the 
Oswego Normal-School was accepted as a part of the 
great normal-school system of the State; how for 
thirty years he worked " like a Hercules" as its princi- 
pal ; how he resisted tempting offers to honorable fields 
elsewhere, preferring to finish his work here ; how he 
was called into other States to assist in organizing 
method schools upon his plan; how men and women 
were attracted from every county and State and coun- 
try to come within the charmed circle of his influence, 
and how they became instruments in extending that 
influence, and in organizing similar schools in other 
States and countries ; how, inspired by his growing 
success, institutions were founded to uplift the colored 
people of the South; how echoes of his iufluence came 



114 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

from the republics of South America, the Sandwich 
Islands, and from far-away Japan; how his methods 
received the indorsement of the National Educational 
Association ; how he wrote the books which, have helped 
others and extended his power for good; how at the 
great Columbian Exposition he was an honored figure in 
educational deliberations, and received a medal of honor 
for his beloved institution " for excellence of equipment, 
method, and wise usefulness ; " and, how finally discour- 
agement gave place to hope, and defeat was crowned 
with glorious victory. Surely the " end crowned the 
work," and patient, self-sacrificing service had its re- 
ward. 

The central thought which moves us now is that he 
was the first great advocate in this country of the prop- 
osition that children should be taught according to cer- 
tain fixed natural laws, which always have and always 
will govern the development of children, and determine 
their possibilities. Believing in the doctrines of Pes- 
talozzi and Froebel, he was their most distinguished 
representative in this country, and the first to point out 
the necessity of observing in the training of children cer- 
tain unchangeable laws of nature which could not be 
violated without spoiling life. Mythology made nature 
an enemy, and pictured it in hideous forms. It was 
reserved for modern philosophers, and Dr. Sheldon was 
one of these, to regard nature as a friend and not an 
enemy, — something that should be studied and loved. 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 115 

He believed that every child represented nature as much 
as a tree or flower, and should be studied and taught 
by natural methods. He believed that education is a 
growth, a natural development, not adding to, but 
bringing out by proper method ; that children are not 
all to be measured by one standard or governed by 
one law, or their character and usefulness in life deter- 
mined by the arbitrary rules of per centum calculations 
and estimates. 

He said of his work many years ago, " In this plan 
of studies the object is not so much to impart informa- 
tion, as to educate the senses and awaken a spirit of 
inquiry. To this end the pupils must be encouraged 
to do most of their talking and acting." In 1873 he 
said, in an address to the students at the Geneseo Nor- 
mal School, "I may judge your work by a standard 
which you do not recognize. I cannot determine the 
education of a child by its ability to answer questions 
in a given way. These answers may be learned from 
books. Rather let me ask a question to which they 
have not learned an answer from the text-book, and let 
them give an answer in their own language from their 
own thought." 

Was this the new education ? Whether new or old, 
it worked a revolution in educational methods — in the 
proper treatment of the children. When the world be- 
came convinced that object-teaching was related to the 
happiness of its. children, when it was certain that it 
could not be laughed down nor stamped out, this school 



116 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

and Dr. Sheldon's efforts became centres of observation. 
They were the Mecca to all teachers who had been led 
to believe there was a simpler, better way to teach chil- 
dren. His work led educators to give attention ; and 
when they began to think, conviction came. It was not 
a momentary flash, a passing thought or fancy, but a 
settled conviction. He was always in earnest ; and be- 
cause he was in earnest, he convinced the thoughtful 
and won victories. He bravely defended the convic- 
tions of his own conscience on intellectual battlefields, 
which he never left except as conqueror. Through his 
work and his influence in first attracting attention to 
this new principle in the education of children, he helped 
to lay broad and deep the foundations of a system 
which will never again be questioned or attacked, but 
which to-day recognizes the power and scope and the 
possibilities of the kindergarten as a living, vital force 
in education, and places it within reach of millions of 
our children. It is no longer an experiment, but a set- 
tled fact; and the State now knows what it means to 
lead children early to think and do for themselves. 
Beyond this, the influence which he exerted through 
all these years has led our educators into other avenues 
of thought, and the principles which he advocated have 
developed well-organized plans of investigation. As a 
result, whatever is practical or valuable in child study 
and nature study, as we find them, comes largely 
through his teaching. 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 117 

Behind his profession, behind his work, stood the 
man. His sterling manhood shone out in all he did 
through his whole professional life. 

As an author of educational works he breathed his 
sympathetic spirit into his books, and the influence of his 
thought and personality went wherever his words were 
read ; and who can tell the power of a written word 
conceived in the hope of helping others? Through the 
printed page he multiplied his influence over teachers 
and pupils, and perpetuated his power. His advanced 
thought, his clear statement, his mastery of the subject, 
and his conscientious purpose made him as successful in 
touching the lives of his readers as in personal contact 
with those he taught. 

In the educational associations of the State and coun- 
try he was always welcome, and took a deep interest, 
not only in promoting their objects, but in the discus- 
sions which they furnished. Even if his associates dif- 
fered with him, they admired his rugged sincerity, his 
earnestness of purpose, and the courteous bravery of his 
gentle speech. He was everybody's friend ; he had no 
enemies in the educational field, and was never pro- 
voked in debate beyond the bounds of kindly firmness. 
The influence which he exerted in these associations 
was always in the direction of higher standards. His . 
last educational visit was to Milwaukee, where his face, 
like a loving benediction, smiled upon those who gath- 
ered in the National Educational Association, a most 
familiar figure ; and my last look upon my friend was 



118 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

as lie mingled happily with the vast concourse of edu- 
cators which gathered there. 



His ideas will not perish. They have taken too deep 
root. It is for us, then, as we feel the influence of his 
life, his work, and his friendship, to carry on the labor 
for education and humanity which he left unfinished. 
We who knew him well, and were with him in spirit 
and heart, must follow him in the path made easier and 
more luminous for his zeal and enthusiasm. That which 
Frederick Douglass said of the immortal Lincoln may 
be repeated of our associate: " He could receive counsel 
from a child, and give counsel to a sage. The simple 
approached him with ease, and the learned approached 
him with deference." 

He loved his work, and put into it all the strength of 
his calm mind, tender heart, and trained understanding. 
His enthusiasm for his profession was so infectious that 
no one whose privilege it was to counsel with him could 
fail to be strengthened and helped. His greatest charm 
was his simplicity. Modest in his estimate of his own 
abilities, he was upheld and sustained at all times by 
the sincerity and integrity of his own aims and prin- 
ciples. 

With the lapse of time his fame as an educator will 
grow greater, and his name will stand among the mas- 
ters of learning who have given the best service of 
their lives to the uplifting of humanity through educa- 




Superintendent LEWIS H. JONES. 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 119 

tion. There are two classes of educators, — the worker 
and the inspirer. Dr. Sheldon was both. 

It was a touching tribute to his memory published 
here on the day of his death : — 

" The life he lived is nobler than anything that could be said 
of him. If we would correctly measure the man, we must meas- 
ure the things he loved. He loved his home, he loved the 
children, he loved his country, he loved nature, and he loved his 
God." 



THE PLACE OF DR. SHELDON IN THE EDUCATIONAL 
WORLD. 1 

Lewis H. Jones, A.M., Superintendent of Schools, Cleveland, Ohio. 

In the long and prosperous period during which the 
Oswego State Normal and Training-School has de- 
veloped its life, founded its beliefs, and established its 
practices, many minds have contributed essential parts 
of the whole ; *but there has been but one head to the 
institution. It is not often that it is given to one man 
to originate a system of education, to embody it in an 
institution, and to live to see that institution through 
its beneficent influences permeate the entire life of a 
nation. It has been the fate of most reformers to die 
before the cry of victory has rung in their ears. Dr. 

1 Included here by courtesy of the Educational Review, in which mag- 
azine the complete address will shortly appear. 



120 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Sheldon had the rare felicity to enjoy a long and peace- 
ful career of unabated prosperity for the cause of his 
heart, and to die without a question as to its future. 
With his death the sceptre passes into no untried hands. 
Enemies there have been; but they have been van- 
quished by being converted into friends; and so as 
time goes on, the cause gathers about it an ever-increas- 
ing multitude. 

It is my special province to-night to speak of the 
educational work of Dr. Sheldon, rather than to dwell 
on the lovable traits of his character which made those 
of us who knew him intimately love him so well, and 
which created in us such profound respect for his man- 
liness. It is perhaps more difficult for me to separate 
his professional self from his personal and social virtues 
than for one who had known him only in his profes- 
sional capacity. Perhaps, however, this is more imagi- 
nary than real ; for more than any other teacher I have 
ever known his success as an educator was the direct 
result of his greatness of soul, and capability as a man 
and citizen. 

It was this greatness of character which led him to 
seek for the permanent and universal in education as 
opposed to the temporary, partial, or local. 



Dr. Sheldon cared little for peculiar crazes in educa- 
tion, but sought that which is permanent. His good 
sense saved him from the mistakes of erratic enthusiasts. 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 121 

Froebel founded his theory to a certain extent on a 
study of infancy ; Pestalozzi, upon childhood ; Herbart, 
on youth ; Rosenkranz, on the study of the mature man. 
Dr. Sheldon included in the psychology on which he 
founded this school the study of man throughout his 
development, from infancy to manhood, and throughout 
life ; and the best elements of all these systems have 
been embodied in the philosophy of education practised 
in this institution. A further marked element of 
strength in Dr. Sheldon's work is found in the fact that 
in the midst of his educational work he lived an upright 
life, in harmony with the best phases of all the insti- 
tutions which civilized man has originated for the up- 
lifting of humanity. He believed in the substantial 
progress of the race, and never doubted the high destiny 
of man. Rousseau, in his fierce fight for the rights of 
the individual, violated the conscience of his time, and 
broke faith with all the institutions of civilization, in 
order that he might emphasize the tenets of individ- 
ualism and a return to nature. Dr. Sheldon recognized 
what Rousseau never saw, — that a return to nature is, 
in fact, to be a return to nature under law and order; 
and that the institutions of civilized life are the most 
natural things which any one can conceive when the 
nature of man is thoroughly understood. It was the 
great strength of Dr. Sheldon that he allied himself 
with all the forces of nature and spirit that make for 
righteousness and civilization. ... He seemed never 
troubled, like Matthew Arnold, to find a name for this 



122 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

higher power. He never beat about the bush, or talked 
about a power, not ourselves, that makes for righteous- 
ness : but he reverently pronounced the name of God ; 
and had he lived in Bible times, I have no doubt he 
would have announced his educational beliefs with- 
44 Thus saith the Lord," so confident was he of the 
friendship and guidance of the God of the universe. 

The time was fortunate. Much dissatisfaction was 
being felt and expressed in many parts of the country 
with existing conditions of education, and especially 
with the condition of the primary schools. Up to that 
date the colleges had set the type of school, public and 
private. The view had been taken from above. No 
one had come down to see how the problem might seem 
when looked at from the view-point of the child. So 
complete was the reversal that Dr. Sheldon lived to see 
the time when, in spite of the assertions of university 
leaders, colleges and universities have been obliged to 
change their courses and improve their methods because 
the primary schools are better than the universities. 
Pupils who have had good teaching in the primary and 
grammar schools have compelled the teachers in high 
schools and colleges to wake up and do something more 
than lecture after a cut-and-dried form on the dead 
theories of the dead past. To Dr. Sheldon more than 
to all others combined is due this result. I am aware 
that many others have joined in the later movement, 
and some have even fancied themselves leaders in the 
movement. It is always easy to follow after some one 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 123 

has blazed out a path. There were bold navigators in 
the time of Columbus who could make a voyage to the 
new world in less time than it first took Columbus to 
cross the unknown sea, but many of them would never 
have passed out of sight of land had no one preceded 
them. 

It was a province in which Dr. Sheldon had some 
followers, many imitators, but no rivals. 

It is hard for me to separate these matters from 
personal memories. Yet this is no time to speak his- 
torically. The history of a great movement can be 
correctly written only after a time-perspective has been 
attained. It lacks a few days of being thirty years 
since I came to this institution as a pupil. The insti- 
tution had even at that time an international reputation. 
I well remember the feeling with which I came. My 
experience in teaching prior to that time had made me 
thoroughly dissatisfied with existing conditions and 
methods. I came here, not exactly to scoff, as Gold- 
smith's villagers went to church ; I came rather in 
doubt ; but I remained to pray. Life began to seem 
worth the living, when hope, purpose, and plan devel- 
oped themselves one after another. I found myself in 
the presence of a born organizer, in whose mind the 
educational ideas of all time fused and blended, elimi- 
nating the inconsistent, until the best of all theories 
remained an organized plan for the education of chil- 
dren. I have never believed it a case of pure thinking. 
Dr. Sheldon was too great to allow himself to degene- 



124 THE OSWEGO KORMAL SCHOOL. 

rate into mere intellect. Neither have I ever thought 
him an originator of individual ideas. He found ideas 
as the bee finds nectar. He made systems of education 
as the bee transforms nectar into honey. I think it 
was Mark Hopkins who said that the heliocentric and 
geocentric theories of the solar system are precisely 
alike as to their materials of thought. The greatness 
of the one is that the sun and not the earth is made the 
centre. It is the mark of a great man to recognize 
intuitively the organizing truth in the heterogeneous 
mass of facts in any province of thought. Dr. Sheldon 
had this instinct in a higher degree than any other 
whom I have ever known. He did not neglect facts ; 
indeed, he observed patiently, and waited for the last 
hint; but he interpreted facts in the light of great 
principles. 

After all, his great strength was in his sanity, — his 
willingness to take all into account, and then, risking 
his all, to stand. He was in harmony with the great 
forces of the universe, and had little need to fear the 
outcome. 



An extract from the address of Professor I. B. Poucher, President 
of the Oswego State Normal and Training-School. 

Another commendable element ever observable in 
Dr. Sheldon was sincerity. He was transparent as a 
statue of glass. He was in every respect just what he 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 125 

appeared to be. His sentiments were never disguised. 
On all questions in which he was interested he held 
definite views and expressed them with fearlessness, 
and yet he was generous to a fault with those who dif- 
fered from him. He was tenacious of his own opinions, 
which were formed after the most mature deliberation, 
yet he was most respectful and tolerant of the opinions 
of others. Do not judge from this, however, that he 
was not a formidable antagonist. There are at least 
two here this evening who have been often by his side 
in controversies, one of which occasions will never be 
forgotten. 

It was at a meeting of the principals and several 
members of the faculties of the normal schools of this 
State held in this building early in the history of this 
school. It was an open secret that at this meeting the 
methods of instruction pursued in the Oswego Normal 
School were to be attacked, and the school overwhelmed 
with disgrace. After various random shots from lesser 
opponents, the leader of the opposition arose. He was 
a profound thinker, clean cut, incisive in argument, 
possessing a metaphysical mind — one of the best con- 
troversial speakers in the State. He was, however, a 
Christian gentleman, open to argument, and willing to 
be convinced. His arguments were as strong as the 
weakness of the position would permit. He closed. 
Every one felt that the critical point in the delibera- 
tions had arrived. The eyes of every Oswego teacher 
were riveted upon their leader, Dr. Sheldon, who they 



126 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

knew was equal to the formidable task before him. He 
arose from his seat with great deliberation, walked to 
one side of the room with his hands clasped behind him, 
his head bowed as if his spirit was troubled. He spoke 
with great calmness. With that simplicity and plain- 
ness which rendered him so gracious and pleasing, he 
unfolded the Pestalozzian principles upon which the 
Oswego methods were based. The arguments of the 
opposition were swept away like cobwebs. When each 
and eveiy one was answered, the fire began to kindle in 
his eyes, he threw back his head, and with an expres- 
sion of conscious power, he said : " Gentlemen, I will 
never give up the instruction in methods in the Oswego 
Normal School ; I will cut loose from every other nor- 
mal school in the State first, and pursue our course 
alone, if necessary, rather than give up what we con- 
sider the most important part of our work." The 
meeting closed, and those from a distance went to their 
homes. The two leaders continued their arguments by 
correspondence. They met face to face at different $ 
times to renew the contest. The final result was that 
the Oswego curriculum, including instruction in meth- 
ods, was adopted by every new normal school in the 
State, nearly every one of which employed one or more 
Oswego graduates. 

If upon mature reflection, after consultation with his 
friends, an action seemed right, then he favored it, no 
matter what the result. I remember once at a faculty 



EXTRACTS FROM ADDRESSES. 127 

meeting the matter of changing the curriculum was the 
subject of deliberation and discussion. The concensus 
of opinion seemed to favor a different grouping of some 
subjects and omission of others. The argument led to 
but one conclusion, which seemed to startle a certain 
member of the faculty, who remarked, " So you want 
to get rid of me, do you ? " Dr. Sheldon's answer was, 
"No, my dear friend, we do not want to get rid of you. 
We want to do that which is best for the normal 
school. Its interests are always first with me, even 
above those of my family. If it would be an advan- 
tage to this school for me to resign my position I would 
do it to-morrow." This closed the discussion. The 
change was made, and the resignation followed. The 
principle that guided Dr. Sheldon in this and all trans- 
actions was the highest good to all. Selfishness was 
not a part of his nature. 

Lest any should think me a partial witness, let me 
add some testimonies from the first educators of the 
nation, received in personal correspondence in the past 
few days : — 

Dr. Mc Vicar of New York City says : — 
"I feel sure that it is difficult to overestimate the 
nobility of Dr. Sheldon's character, or the greatness and 
importance of his life-work." 

Superintendent Maxwell of Brooklyn : — 
" I admire Dr. Sheldon as one of the great educa- 
tional leaders of this country. It is impossible to state 



128 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

too strongly the good influence he exercised in inspiring 

others with his own zeal and lofty ideas." 

Superintendent Jones of Cleveland, Ohio : — 

" I owe to Dr. Sheldon, more than to any other one 

person, whatever of inspiration I have carried into my 

teaching." 



" The Hon. Charles R. Skinner, Superintendent of 
Public Instruction, said to Dr. Sheldon : — 

" Your advice, founded on long years of experience, 
will always be received by this department with the 
utmost pleasure and profit." 

Professor Hermann Kriisi: — 

"Dr. Sheldon loved truth, and possessed a pure, 
honest heart. His relations to his family were of a pa- 
triarchal character, like those of a kind, loving father 
to his children. I never knew a man who came nearer 
to my idea of being a saint than he, or a woman with 
more of the attributes of an angel than his wife, who 
passed away before him." 



ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS 



INSERTED IN THIS 



Hlumni flDemorial j£&ition 



AT THE REQUEST OF 



A MEMORIAL COMMITTEE 



APPOINTED BY 



THE FACULTY OF THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 



MEMORIAL RESOLUTIONS 

Of the Local Board of the Oswego State Normal and Training 
School, Aug. 28, 1897. 

Yesterday afternoon at four o'clock a meeting of 
the local board of the State Normal and Training 
School was held in the City Hall to take action on the 
death of Dr. Edward A. Sheldon. 

When President Mollison called the meeting to order 
there were only two absentees, namely, ex-Senator 
George B. Sloan and George T. Clark, both of whom 
were unavoidably detained. 

Frederick O. Clarke was chosen to act as secretary, 
and then followed the formal announcement by Presi- 
dent Mollison of Dr. Sheldon's death. Mr. Mollison 
made appropriate remarks respecting the connection of 
Dr. Sheldon with educational interests. 

Former Judge John C. Churchill, after emphasizing 
the president's remarks, moved the appointment of a 
committee of three to draft and present resolutions ex- 
pressive of the feeling of the board on the occasion. 
Judge Churchill, Messrs. Theodore Irwin and A. S. 
Page were named. The committee reported the follow- 
ing memorial and resolutions : — 

It is with feelings of profound sorrow and regret that this 
board has learned of the sudden and unexpected death of its late 

131 



132 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

acting secretary, the principal of the Oswego State Normal and 
Training School, Dr. Edward A. Sheldon. 

Scarcely a day has passed since his commanding figure, his 
alert step, his " good gray head that all men knew," were seen 
upon our streets ; he attentive to all the interests with which he 
has been so long identified, when without pause in his work, and 
almost without premonition, the city is startled by the announce- 
ment of his death. 

The founder, we might say the creator, of this school, whose 
local board we are, he has been identified with it from the begin- 
ning. When in 1853 he took charge of the public schools in 
Oswego as the first secretary of its Board of Education just or- 
ganized, in the rules for the government of those schools, prepared 
by him and adopted that year, it was required that the teachers 
should " meet every Saturday from 9 to 12 a.m., for mutual in- 
struction and improvement, and by recitations and general exer- 
cises strive to systematize and perfect the modes of discipline and 
teaching in the public schools." At those weekly sessions he was 
the teacher, and with untiring patience and ever-increasing intel- 
ligence and skill he taught the teachers how to teach. 

It was one of the first schools for the instruction of teachers 
on this continent, the first step in the development of teaching 
as a profession. 

With his patient perseverance and perception, clear at the first 
and ever growing clearer, of the necessities of the case, from this 
beginning grew naturally the Oswego Training School, the Os- 
wego Normal and Training School, and at last the Oswego State 
Normal and Training School ,whose local board we are, and 
which, under his guidance and inspiration beyond any other 
single influence, has elevated and improved the methods and sys- 
tems of instruction in the public schools of this country. 

But it will be for others, better fitted than ourselves, to speak 
of the character and value of his work, to do justice at some other 
time and place to the work accomplished by our deceased friend. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 133 

It is for us as citizens of Oswego to express the debt we owe 
him for the sixteen years of faithful and fruitful toil he gave to 
the management of our public schools, and for the system of 
instruction he established in them. 

It is for us as members of this local board to unite with the 
most experienced and successful of the great educators of the 
country in declaring the value of the services rendered by him 
during the twenty-eight years he has served as principal of the 
Oswego State Normal and Training School, not only to this 
school and the students instructed here, but to the cause of prog- 
ress in educational methods in the country at large and in the 
regions beyond. 

It is for us as friends to declare his untiring industry, his pa- 
tient perseverance, his unselfish devotion, his upright and noble 
manhood, his Christian character and life, his unwavering trust 
in the good providence of God, the noble example in every good 
word and work which he has left us. 

Resolved, That this memorial of the late principal of the State 
Normal and Training School be entered upon the records of the 
board, and that an engrossed copy of the same be furnished the 
family of the deceased, in whose great loss we share, and with 
whose sorrow we sympathize. 

Mr. Edwin Allen moved the adoption of the report 
and resolution. 

Mr. Coon, in seconding the motion, made reference 
to the integrity, uprightness, and nobility of character 
so marked in the life of Dr. Sheldon. Mr. Coon's re- 
marks were listened to with the closest attention, and 
what he said of the venerable educator voiced the senti- 
ments of all present. In further seconding the motion, 
Mr. Irwin spoke as follows : — 



134 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

I greatly regret my inability to express in fitting words the 
feelings of my heart on the sad event which has called us to- 
gether. No one, I am. sure, feels more deeply the sense of per- 
sonal loss sustained in the death of Dr. Sheldon, for he was a 
valued friend whom I had known for half a century. I first 
knew him as a young man when he came here to reside in 1847. 
Two years later he came with his bride to board in the same 
house with me. But it is in our relations in the management of 
the normal school during a period of thirty years that I have 
known him most intimately, and have learned to appreciate his 
many valued qualities of mind and heart. 

In his loved profession of education he attained wide and mer- 
ited renown. His judgment and his views in all that related to 
educational methods were remarkable. He was loved by all, both 
teachers and pupils, who came under his influence ; and in all sec- 
tions of this broad country are those, numbering many thousands, 
who will learn with profound sorrow of his death. 

Beyond his great ability as a teacher, Dr. Sheldon was an able 
man of affairs and of business. As treasurer of this board, and 
member of the committees on building and teachers, I have been 
impressed with the vast amount of labor he performed cheer- 
fully, and in the most correct and methodical manner. No cost 
of time and trouble was too great for him in his desire to relieve 
the members of this board from the vast details of the manage- 
ment of the institution. 

I shall miss his familiar form in our streets and at our meet- 
ings, the inspiration of his example, the pleasant smile and cheer- 
ful greeting, and shall always cherish the remembrance of this 
noble Christian gentleman. 

At the conclusion of Mr. Irwin's remarks the report 
was adopted. 

President Mollison extended, on behalf of the family, 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 135 

an invitation to the members of the board to act as 
honorary pall-bearers at the funeral. On motion of Mr. 
Page the invitation was accepted. 

The Mayor, Common Council, city officers, Board of 
Education, city teachers, and alumni of the Normal 
School have been invited to attend the funeral of the 
late Dr. E. A. Sheldon from Grace Church, at 2.30 p.m., 
Sunday next. 



ADDRESS OF HON. GEORGE B. SLOAN. 

At the Memorial Services of the Oswego City Teachers' Association, 
October, 1897. 

The Hon. George B. Sloan was introduced as the 
next speaker, and made an address touching mainly 
the personal characteristics of Dr. Sheldon. Express- 
ing his appreciation of the privilege accorded him by 
the teachers in addressing them, he referred to several 
reasons for his pleasure in responding, among them one 
most prominent, — the fact that he had always counted 
himself among those who placed the highest conceiv- 
able value on education, believing it to be productive 
of the greatest attainable moral, social, and economic 
advantages. Holding thus the opinion that education 
was absolutely necessary to success in life, he could not 
fail to have the highest regard for those who followed 
the profession of teaching, and hence his gratification 
in being called on by the teachers to speak of one for 
whom he entertained so much esteem and regard. 



136 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Passing then to speak of Dr. Sheldon, Mr. Sloan 
pronounced glowing words of eulogy, which he said 
were only words of justice. If, said he, there are some 
extremely critical people who think I have taken the 
measurement of Dr. Sheldon in too large a mould, who 
think that in my admiration I am not strictly accu- 
rate, their views can be easily accounted for. They 
simply did not know Dr. Sheldon, so noiselessly, so 
unostentatiously, with so much self-abnegation and so 
little desire for public commendation, was the work of 
his life carried on. He had rarely known a man, said 
Mr. Sloan, so oblivious of his own achievements, so actu- 
ated by a desire to do the daily duty that came to him 
without thought of personal benefit. The majority of 
the people composing this community have not had the 
opportunity of learning in its plentitude what manner 
of man Dr. Sheldon was. It is a fact that in educa- 
tional circles his opinion ranked as high as that of any 
member of the profession, so well did our leaders appre- 
ciate the value of his counsel, his high character, and 
his devotion to his duties. 

His warm admiration for Dr. Sheldon, said the 
speaker, had led him to attempt to analyze his charac- 
ter, to determine what were the elements which made 
him such a successful man. He thought the greatest 
and fundamental characteristic was an equable and se- 
rene temperament, which enabled him to restrain irrita- 
tion and impatience under the most trying circumstances. 
He was to a marked degree swayed by the influence of 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 137 

a desire and capability to weigh the pros and cons of 
every case before reaching conclusions. In this respect 
Mr. Sloan declared only one other man of his acquain- 
tance ever approximated to these conditions of perfec- 
tion in Dr. Sheldon. 

Another trait of character was spoken of, — that of 
industry. Amid all the discussion of the proper length 
of time for daily labor so much talked about in the 
press and elsewhere of late years, Dr. Sheldon, while 
sympathizing with every movement to ameliorate the 
condition of laboring men, calmly went his own way, 
limiting himself not to eight, nor ten, nor twelve hours 
for his daily allotment of toil. Perhaps fourteen hours 
would more fully measure the extent of his devotion to 
his duties. He loved his work because he loved his 
fellow-men. He loved to see young people prosper. He 
loved to see them grow, along those lines which prom- 
ise development of character, — the lines which make 
for happiness and usefulness in this life, and give assu- 
rance of a blessed hereafter; and this accounts for his 
intense absorption in his work. 

Mr. Sloan then spoke of the gentleness of his disposi- 
tion, his engaging manners, his tactfulness in bringing 
others to his way of thinking, first reaching his own 
conclusions by means of thorough, honest investigation 
and logical reasoning. In his own work on the local 
board, Mr. Sloan said, as chairman of the committee of 
teachers, he had invariably submitted to the judgment 
of Dr. Sheldon, as had in fact the other members of 



138 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

the board. One more element of the character of 
the deceased was referred to, — that of his absolute 
conscientiousness. Every question was submitted to 
the test, Is it right? Is it wrong? measured by rules 
of morality, and the divine will; and when satisfied 
on these points, nothing could swerve him from his 
position. Nothing could be farther from the truth, the 
speaker said, than for a moment to suppose that Dr. 
Sheldon fell short of being a firm man because of the 
fact that his methods of reasoning were not those of the 
dogmatist. It is true that he was never outwardly 
aggressive. He never impressed one as possessed of the 
least degree of vanity, and one might at first assume 
that possibly there was not enough self-assertion in his 
personality ; but little observation was needed to perceive, 
however, that sincerity and ample determination, as well 
as benevolence, were written in every line of his coun- 
tenance ; and those who knew him best came to under- 
stand that when a principle was at stake Dr. Sheldon's 
convictions of the right of the side of the question he 
espoused were sure to be made fearlessly plain, and fail- 
ure to convince those he addressed rarely followed his 
efforts. So logical and winning indeed were his methods 
of stating a proposition, and then supporting them with 
well-considered reasons, so apparent, too, were the can- 
dor and fairness of his contention, that his case was not 
unlikely to be won with its simple but characteristic 
presentation. 

It has always seemed to me, the speaker continued, 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 139 

that Dr. Sheldon's tactfulness, or, as might perhaps 
more properly be said, his pacificatory powers, the qual- 
ities so helpful, if not indeed determining, in so many 
of the remarkable successes of Franklin's career, though 
of necessity displayed in a narrower field of action in 
Dr. Sheldon's case, were nevertheless akin to those for 
which the great philosopher and statesman was distin- 
guished. 

In concluding his address, Mr. Sloan referred to the 
generosity and broad sympathy of the man whose loss 
we mourn, expressed in so many ways unknown to the 
public, expressed often in aiding struggling students 
to realize their ambition for an education. He voiced 
his own personal love for him as a friend, and declared 
that there had not within his recollection lived and died 
in Oswego a man whose planting and tillage would 
show more abundant fruitage than that of Dr. Sheldon ; 
that while in Shakespeare's time conditions and environ- 
ment might have warranted the immortal bard in writ- 
ing, " The evil that men do lives after them, the good is 
oft interred with their bones," it is not true in our day. 
It is not, it cannot be true in Dr. Sheldon's case. The 
touch of Dr. Sheldon's life will be felt not only by 
those whose work was with him and near him, but it 
will be felt by others still, and yet again it will be felt 
by future generations, unrecognized, unseen perhaps, but 
yet working out helps to higher ideals, after all earthly 
recollections of his lovable personality shall have faded 
out of sight forever. 



140 THE OSWEGO XOEMAL SCHOOL. 

A life like that of the great educator, Dr. Sheldon, 
now gone from among us, is imperishable in its influ- 
ence for good, and the lessons of its example will never 
die. The light of these lessons will shine on, and more 
brightly. It will point the way to wholesome thought 
and wholesome action. Its rajs will quicken the souls 
of thousands drawn every year to our institutions of 
learning. Encouragement ' will be felt by those who 
are striving to be teachers. They will be made better 
teachers. More than that, they will grow into better 
men, better women. They will grow into better men 
and better women because they will wear the crown of 
righteous endeavor, — the endeavor of useful aims and 
cheerful sacrifices. These, in the nature of things, are 
the sequences of lives like Dr. Sheldon's. May it not 
be concluded, then, that no legacy is more grateful, no 
wealth more valuable, no incentive more helpful, than 
the examples of such lives. To be factors while living 
in shaping for good the destinies of those who live later, 
is indeed a laudable and noble ambition. Even more 
than that; it should fill the largest measure of human 
desire, especially when such lives as the one that is 
ended are emulated, because the record of that life re- 
veals no obligation unfulfilled, no act to cause regret. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 141 

Address at the Memorial Exercises of the Normal School, by 
Rev. David Wills, Jr. 

DR. SHELDON AND THE CHURCH. 

The church of God I It is single. It stands alone. 
There is no other. Its members, filled with the Spirit, 
are of every name, every land, and every age. Into this 
church, because he was a child of God, Dr. Sheldon 
came, as the flowers come to the sun, as the student 
runs after knowledge, as artists sketch and poets sing. 
A renewed man, a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost, 
he moved into and in the church universal with much 
of the naturalness of home life. It was spirit seeking 
the spiritual. His moral philosophy was Copernican ; 
and the central force was Jerusalem, the house of God's 
abode. In social and political life he was a pilgrim 
father ; dominant over all other interests was Zion, the 
city of the Most High. 

But man's vision is limited. We see, at best, but a 
part of any truth; we discover only the little circles 
within the larger orb. So we speak of churches. We 
make divisions, — the church invisible and the churches 
visible, the church formed of real faith and the churches 
founded on professed faith. Dr. Sheldon was also a 
member of the lesser church. He was wise enough to 
see that even an imperfect organization was better than 
no organization ; and he was too broad not to recognize 
the present day naturalness, if not necessity, for theo- 
logical and rubrical differences among Christians. 



142 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

As a member of such a church he was loyal; heart 
and hand he was with it. To him its sacraments meant 
the oath to support it and, if need be, to suffer for it. 
A man of business, no business was more serious than 
that of the sanctuary. Nor was his loyalty ever more 
apparent than in the charity of his fellowship. That 
student, of whatever ecclesiastical name, whose life was 
hid with God in Jesus Christ, was the ideal churchman 
to Dr. Sheldon. 

Then he was a consistent member. Consistency is a 
pale word to express the blood-red meaning I have in 
mind. He was so good, so true, so pure, his words 
influenced us, his wisdom guided us; but, most of all, 
his character was his power over us. Such a man ! 
We believed in him ; we trusted in him. Such a heart ! 
Near it, we felt that God himself was nigh. 

And he was a loving member. Ah, here is the crown 
jewel of this illuminated, this brilliant life. The flash 
was from the heart. The history of Dr. Sheldon, broad 
and varied though it may be, will all be written within 
the limits of the first and the great commandment: 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and thy neighbor as thyself." His religion was neither 
a proposition nor a profession, it was a passion. He did 
not think nor argue about God ; he rather gazed into 
the face of God as a true son looks into the counte- 
nance of a loving father. By communion he was 
changed into the heavenly image. And truly he loved 
others. His heart was with all. He was drawn, by moral 



MEMOEIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 143 

gravitation, to the goodness of all the good, and his soul 
went out in gentleness and pity towards the badness of 
all the bad. He was a loving member, and this is all ; 
for God is love, and love is the fulfilling of the law. 

Only let us remember this. Dr. Sheldon was and is 
a member of the church. That church is founded on 
love, and "neither life nor death" shall separate its 
members from that love. Let us believe in the com- 
munion of the saints ; let us fellowship ever with Dr. 
Sheldon. He lives ! He lives ! 

" One family we dwell in Him, 

One church above, beneath, 
Though now divided by the stream, 

The narrow stream of death. 
One army of the living God, 

At his command we bow; 
Part of the host have crossed the flood, 

And part are crossing now." 



Memorial Resolutions of the Normal Principals of the State at the 
Semi-annual Meeting, October, 1897. 

Whereas, Since the last semi-annual meeting of the Normal 
Principals' Council, Dr. Edward A. Sheldon, its president, much 
honored and much beloved, has passed from a life of rich labor 
into eternal rest, and, 

Whereas, The members of this Council desire to express and 
record our sense of deep sorrow, and give utterance to our appre- 
ciation of the work and worth of our leader, be it 



144 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

Resolved, That the members of the Normal School Principals' 
Council, assembled in session at Lake Mohonk, hereby express 
their profound feeling of personal loss in the death of Dr. Edward 
A. Sheldon, our enthusiastic and ever-hopeful leader, our wise 
counsellor, our kindly and warm-hearted friend. 

Resolved, That we hereby convey our tenderest sympathy to 
his much-bereaved family, to the faculty and students of the Os- 
wego Normal School, and to the many graduates of Oswego, widely 
scattered throughout the country, who bear in their lives the im- 
press of the manly man, the whole-souled teacher, the wise guide, 
the true friend, and the high-minded patriot. 

Resolved, That in view of the high character of Dr. Sheldon, 
the conspicuous place he occupied as one of the fathers of the 
normal-school system in America, and one of the pioneers of our 
public-school system, the president of this council appoint a com- 
mittee to prepare a suitable memorial of Dr. Sheldon, and to 
submit the same at the next meeting of this council. 

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be forwarded by 
the secretary of the council to the family of our departed friend, 
to the local board the faculty, and the students of the Oswego 
Normal School. 



Memorial presented Dec. 13 by the Committee Appointed by City 
and Village Superintendents. 

To the Council of City and Village Superintendents. 

Gentlemen, — Your committee appointed to draft a 
memorial to the late Dr. E. A. Sheldon beg leave to 
submit the following : — 

The lives of the great and good are our richest in- 
heritance. Such a heritage is ours in the late Edward 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 145 

Austin Sheldon, A.M., Ph.D., Principal of the State 
Normal and Training School at Oswego. 

To-day we stand too near to get the proper perspec- 
tive for a fair estimate of the work of this man. The 
times do not permit of reforms like those instituted by 
Comenius ; the laws of mental growth have been care- 
fully studied and formulated ; educational theories have 
been promulgated and tested; but in a day when the 
trend of American education was towards formalism, it 
was Dr. Sheldon who arrested pedagogical thought, and 
insisted upon bringing childhood into touch with na- 
ture, thereby predicating scholarship upon experience. 

For nearly half a century he devoted his talents and 
energies to the development and improvement of our 
public-school system, during which period a host of 
disciples went forth from under his teachings whose 
missionary work has moulded and improved the meth- 
ods of teaching throughout the Tength and breadth of 
our land. A pioneer in the introduction of untried 
methods at a time when those in vogue were crude and 
unphilosophical, he devoted himself resolutely and as- 
siduously to the work of reform. He declined honors 
and emoluments which broader fields of work offered, 
and steadfastly toiled where he believed his Master had 
called him. Happily he lived to see in the fruition of 
his work a golden harvest of merited honor. His name 
stands enrolled among the most illustrious promoters of 
popular education of modern times. 

Without claiming for Dr. Sheldon the credit of dis- 



146 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

co very or the invention of a new system of pedagogics, 
his work was so distinctive, his theory of training 
teachers so radically different from his contemporaries, 
that we do well to pause and to consider our indebted- 
ness to his life, and to honor the memory of a man who 
has given form to the educational thought and the edu- 
cational practice of a continent. When the future 
historian of pedagogics shall re-write the changes in 
American education, the progress in primary education 
and in the training of teachers, Edward Austin Sheldon 
shall stand alone, the Pestalozzi of the New World. 

Simple, unpretending, seeking to be taught that he 
in turn might teach, his sole aim was to discover and 
to establish a system of pedagogics, simple, logical, 
based upon the unfolding activities of childhood, which 
should fit man for humanity and for his eternal destiny. 
Dr. Sheldon's character was unique. He labored for a 
principle, and subjected all minor considerations to its 
advancement. He was not an enthusiast, but a patient, 
persistent, and hopeful worker. He was ever courteous, 
gentle, and unassuming under conditions which would 
have rendered a less noble character autocratic and pre- 
tentious. He was guileless and pure, a disciple of the 
Great Teacher in precept and in example ; in fine, a 
Christian gentleman. 

His home, " Shady Shore," with its trees and vines, 
its bees and flowers, was an outward index of his sym- 
pathy with nature. Longfellow's tribute to Agassiz may 
well be applied to him : — 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 147 

"Nature, the old nurse, took 
The child upon her knee, 
Saying, ' Here is a story-book 

Thy Father has written for thee.' 

"And he wandered away and away 
With Nature, the dear old nurse, 
Who sang to him night and day 
The rhymes of the universe." 

The grove, the garden, the vineyard, the lake, were 
his teachers. In these more than in books he found 
the inspiration of his life. He read them, not as bota- 
nist, not as naturalist, but as a child to whom these 
were an open revelation of a divine intelligence ; to 
him they were a boundless store of knowledge, in which 
he found much to contemplate, and the very contempla- 
tion was inspiration, joy, peace. 

In reviewing the life of Dr. Sheldon for the purpose 
of finding the secret of his power, at least the following 
characteristics may be discovered : a genial, hopeful 
spirit; love for children ; enthusiasm born of conviction 
of the righteousness of his cause; the elevation of hu- 
manity; catholicity of spirit; supreme faith in divine 
guidance and aid ; faith that somehow through all his 
work the "purposes of God would surely work their 
own best way." 

' His own words in explanation of his declining flat- 
tering invitations to posts of honor best reflect his real 
life. "I have endeavored to put myself in position to 
pursue the line of duty, without reference to personal 



148 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

inclination, seeking simply to know my Father's will, 
and then to do it." 

In his address of welcome to the alumni, on the oc- 
casion of the celebration of the first quarter century of 
the Oswego Normal School, Dr. Sheldon said, " One 
of the surest elements of prosperity in any undertaking 
is loyalty to truth. To this more than any other thing 
has our success been due. Thoroughly imbued with 
the belief that there are certain unchanging laws of 
mental growth which must form the basis of all true 
educational progress, we have made them the foundation- 
stone of our structure." In speaking of the agencies 
which have contributed to the growth of the school he 
continues, "All these I have emphasized as human in- 
strumentalities ; but rising far above them all, and in 
and through them all, there has been infinite wisdom to 
guide, direct, and control all efforts and all events, and 
give them success. The providence of God has been 
very marked in the whole history of this school. We 
can but regard it as an institution of his own planting 
and protecting, and to him be all the praise of what we 
are and what we hope to be." 

Dr. Sheldon will ever hold a conspicuous place among 
American educators on account of two lines of work, 
either of which would merit lasting fame. 

Himself an ardent lover of nature, he sought to put 
every child in touch with nature, that the young life 
might early feel the presence of the Creator, and early 
learn to love him. To this end he gave prominence to 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 149 

the acquisition of knowledge through the senses in pri- 
mary education, and in laboratory methods in advanced 
study. That primary knowledge is sensuous was not 
an original conception with Dr. Sheldon, but he brought 
the attention of educators to this fact, by the emphasis 
which he placed upon observation lessons, or "object 
lessons " as they were first termed. These views were 
stoutly controverted in educational gatherings, and a 
man of less profound conviction would have abandoned 
the field; but certain of his position he met argument 
with fact, until his critics and opponents, convinced of 
the correctness of his position, became his warmest 
friends. His oft-repeated, "You may not see it now, 
but you will come to acknowledge my position," was 
his only personal rebuke offered those who differed 
with him in these debates. The present generation of 
teachers can hardly realize that what they accept as 
cardinal principles in education were advocated for years 
by Dr. Sheldon alone. His faith in the ultimate suprem- 
acy of truth made him a bold defender of a principle 
whose verity he had tested. 

The second phase of school-work in America for which 
Dr. Sheldon is responsible, and for which he alone is 
entitled to credit, is the so-called " Oswego theory of 
training teachers." A firm believer in the necessity 
of a clear comprehension of principles, Dr. Sheldon did 
not believe that such comprehension could be divorced 
from practice. Precept and rule derived their content 
from application ; hence the basal principle in the train- 



150 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

ing of teachers was the necessity of a school of practice 
where principles could be tested, and where habits of 
correct teaching could be formed. The place of the 
schools of practice in the normal school as taught by 
Dr. Sheldon was at first strenuously opposed in the State 
associations and in national councils, but the results ob- 
tained in the Oswego school soon vindicated the author; 
and to-day the numerous normal schools based upon the 
original Oswego idea are the strongest evidence of the 
far-seeing mind of this prince of educators. To Dr. 
Sheldon must be given the credit and the honor of dem- 
onstrating the necessity of the practice department in 
the normal school. 

The members of this council who were present at the 
Buffalo meeting of the national association in 1896 will 
recall the heated debate upon the " Organization of the 
Training-School," and also the clearness with which 
Dr. Sheldon outlined his ideal normal school. 

The serious if not the fatal defect in our educational system 
before the advent of the " Oswego Movement " was the strange 
neglect of childhood, a system predicated, upon the university and 
not upon the kindergarten. How to reverse this system was the 
problem which engaged the attention of this second Pestalozzi. 
But who was to instruct him, and where was material to be 
found? Some means must be devised to put the child into proper 
relation with life. His education must be helpful, uplifting, and 
inspiring. Dr. Sheldon believed that " education should imbue 
man with respect for the circumstances and the events of his 
environment, and at the same time inspire him with faith in the 
inexhaustible resources of his nature ; for only by producing better 
things can he elevate himself above his past." 



MEMORIAL ADDRESSES AND RESOLUTIONS. 151 

Dr. Sheldon never hoped to see self-wrought reforms ; he be- 
lieved in tireless activity. " When I have done my best to per- 
suade men to my ideas I keep right on, and trust to the vindication 
of results." His life was an incarnation of the masterful senti- 
ment of Lord Bacon, " In this world God only and angels may be 
spectators." His theories were not the result of accident, but 
were the logical outgrowth of mature reflection. He had faith in 
them. Willing to make minor concessions for the sake of gaining 
major ends, he never yielded what he considered a cardinal prin- 
ciple. ISTo secondary considerations were allowed to infringe upon 
the unity of his ultimate purpose. To this everything was sub- 
ordinated. 

That childhood even might be so related to life that its early 
lessons wonld put it in sympathy with nature, with truth, with 
purity, with God, was the end sought. The words of Thomas 
Arnold fitly voice his sentiments : " What I want to see in the 
school is the abhorrence of evil." " To become one in heart with 
the good and generous and devout is, by God's grace, to become 
in measure good and generous and devout." In his searchings for 
means to relate the child to nature, Dr. Sheldon found in the im- 
ported collection of the educational appliances in the National 
Museum of Toronto the first help to his great system of " object 
lessons." His return from Toronto is thus described by his gifted 
daughter, Mrs. Mary Sheldon-Barnes. " Well do I remember the 
delight with which he returned from this visit armed with some 
material appliances for accomplishing his desires. The dark 
shelves of the little closets opening off from the dingy office where 
my father lived and worked all day as secretary of the Board of 
Education became filled with wonders delightful to my childish 
eyes, and I think no less so to his own ; colored balls and cards, 
bright colored pictures of animals, samples of grain, specimens of 
pottery and glass." Here were the means provided by nature to 
put childhood into touch with herself, and into sympathy with her. 
These rather than books should prove the inspiration which would 



152 THE OSWEGO NORMAL SCHOOL. 

make books and life itself intelligible. " The difference between 
a useful education and one which does not affect the future life," 
says Dr. Arnold, " rests mainly on the greater or less activity 
which it has communicated to the pupil's mind, whether he has 
learned to think and to act and to gain knowledge by himself, or 
whether he has merely followed passively as long as there was 
some one to draw him." 

Such a life cannot be restricted in its influence to a single city 
or to a single State. Like the central sun, its vivifying energy 
must penetrate the regions most remote, and with its touch im- 
part new life. 

Who shall presume to say that child study and the American 
kindergarten do not owe more to Dr. Sheldon than to any other 
person or agency for their marvellous development in this country ? 
These are no longer a matter of controversy; as demonstrated 
facts they challenge the admiration of the world. Myriads of 
little ones who have never lisped his name, and who will never 
hear his voice, are sharing the blessings of his life, his work in 
their behalf, his ministry to children's schools. 

If the good bishop of Moravia was the first evangel of modern 
pedagogy, if the long-suffering master of Yverdon was the second, 
this noble priest of humanity, with his " ragged school," was both 
the Comenius and the Pestalozzi of America. If Yverdon was the 
educational Bethlehem of the Old World, Oswego is that of the 
New ; for " E. A. Sheldon, with his ragged Oswego boys and girls 
in 1848, and Heinrich Pestalozzi, with his desolate orphans at 
Stanz in 1779, teach the same lesson." 

" Oh! weep for Adonais! though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head 
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
And teach them thine own sorrow! Say, "With me 
Died Adouais; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fame and fate shall be 

An echo and a light unto eternity." 



APPENDIX A. 



153 



APPENDIX A. 

TABLE 1.1 

Geographical Distribution of Oswego Graduates During Its First 

Quarter- Century (1861-1886). 





« 2 3 




M 2 < 




p a 

< ' 3 
w 2 % 


State. 




State. 


b H M 


State. 






° i » 




§3 




o g z 


Maine, 


10 


Michigan, 


93 


No. Carolina, 


8 


New Hampshire, 


5 


Wisconsin, 


17 


So. Carolina, 


6 


Vermont, 


35 


Minnesota, 


66 


Georgia, 


8 


Massachusetts, 


32 


Iowa, 


46 


Alabama, 


7 


Connecticut, 


19 


Missouri, 


24 


Florida, 


2 


Rhode Island, 


3 


Kansas, 


20 


Arkansas, 


4 


New York, 


1276 


Nebraska, 


36 


Louisiana, 


7 


Pennsylvania, 


70 


The Dakotas, 


3 


Indian Ter., 


1 


New Jersey, 


72 


Colorado, 


10 


Texas, 


1 


Delaware. 


2 

8 


California, 
Arizona, 


20 
1 








Country. 


Maryland, 






Virginia, 


8 


Wyoming, 


4 


Canada, 


4 


Dist. Columbia, 


5 


Montana, 


1 


Mexico, 


1 


West Virginia, 


1 


Oregon, 


1 


So. America, 


6 


Ohio, 


60 


Washington, 


1 


Japan, 


2 


Maryland, 


73 


Kentucky, 


9 


Hawaii, 


3 


Illinois, 


94 


Tennessee, 


4 


India, 


1 



1 Based on alumni records. It is needless to say that the table is incomplete, 
for many graduates have changed positions since the record was made. The fig- 
ures represent the number of graduates between the dates named who have been 
traced to a given State. For the purposes of the table, which is to show by the 
direct method the extent of Oswego influence, where one graduate has taught in 
several places, each place is taken as representing an Oswego teacher. 



154 



APPENDIX A. 



TABLE II.l 

Present Distribution of Oswego Graduates "Who have been Graduated 
During the Last Ten Years (January, 1887, to January, 1897). 



State. 


ft c 

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1 


"Wisconsin, 


2 


So. Carolina, 


1 


New Hampshire, 


2 


Minnesota, 


12 


Georgia, 


2 


Vermont, 


16 


Iowa, 


3 


Alabama, 


1 


Massachusetts, 


20 


Missouri, 


2 


Mississippi, 


2 


New York, 


505 


Nebraska, 


11 


Florida,. 


2 


Pennsylvania, 


14 


So. Dakota, 


5 


Louisiana, 


1 


New Jersey, 


55 


Colorado, 


2 


Indian Ter., 


1 


Maryland, 


3 


Utah, 


5 


Texas, 


1 


Virginia, 


3 
1 


California, 
Oregon, 


4 
2 






Country. 


Dist. Columbia, 


Germany, 


32 


Ohio, 


10 


Washington, 


4 


Persia, 


1 


Indiana, 


5 


Kentucky, 


2 


Canada, 


2 


Illinois, 


10 


Tennessee, 


2 


China, 


1 


Michigan, 


6 


No. Carolina, 


1 


Hawaii, 


4 



1 Based on the latest records kept at the Oswego Normal School. The tahle 
includes none of the graduates enumerated in Table I. A number of those 
enumerated are married, but as a rule taught before marriage in the locality 
designated. In observing this distribution two facts which operate strongly 
against it should be kept in mind. The first is that the normal schools of New 
York State, during half of the decade, have charged students from other States 
a tuition fee of forty dollars a year ; the other is that the large output of the 
numerous State, city, and normal schools of the different States make it un- 
necessary and difficult for graduates from other States to be employed. 

2 Studying. 



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APPENDIX C. 159 



APPENDIX C. 

Bibliography of Chief Sources. 

Annual Reports of United States Commissioners of Education. 

Barnard's American Journal of Education. 

For particular references see foot-notes to chapters. 

Rise and Growth of the Normal School Idea. 

By Prof. J. P. Gordy, Bureau of Education, Circular No. 8, 1891. 

Boone's Education in the United States. 

'(Chapter on "Preparation of Teachers," p. 137.) Appleton (New 
York), 1889. 

Annual Reports of Superintendent of Education, Massachusetts. 

The Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System. 
G. H. Martin. Appleton (New York). 

The Normal School in America. 

Paper by A. D. Mayo in " Historical Sketches of the Oswego State 
Normal and Training School," 1887. 

History of Object Teaching. 

Paper by N. A. Calkins, published in Barnard 's American Journal 
of Education, vol. xii., p. 633. 

The Oswego State Normal School. 

Article by Prof. William M. Aber in Popular Science Monthly, 
May, 1893. 

Annual Reports of the Board of Education of Oswego, N. Y., 
from 1854 to 1868. 

Annual Circulars of the Oswego Normal School, and Reports 
of Alumni Meetings. 

History of the Normal School. 

Paper by Hermann Krusi in " Historical Sketches of the Oswego 
State Normal and Training School." 



160 APPENDIX C. 

Editorial in Education for November, 1896. 

Annual Proceedings of National Educational Association. 

Report on Object Teaching. 

Made by Prof. S. S. Greene before the New England Association 
at Harrisburg, Pa., 1865. 

Year-Book of Education, 1878. 

Kiddle-Schem. E. Steiger (New York). 

History of Education in Wisconsin. 
Dr. J. W. Stearns. 1893. 



ADVERTISEMENTS 



EDUCATION. 133 



An Introduction to Herbart' s Science and 

Practice of Education. Translated from the German of Herbart by Mr. and 
Mrs. Felkin. With an introduction by Oscar Browning. Cloth. 207 
pages. Retail price, $1. 00. 

NOT a few have become discouraged in their efforts to understand 
Herbart's teaching by reason of the somewhat difficult form in 
which it has been presented. Felkin's Introduction affords the proper 
method of approach, and clears the way for a correct appreciation of 
the nature and importance of the great doctrines of Herbart. The 
book is not "elementary, 1 ' except in the sense that signifies dealing 
with elemental facts. Its scope includes chapters on Psychology, 
Ethics, Practical Pedagogy, Character, Government, and Discipline. 
The materials have been gathered largely from Herbart's Umriss 
Padagogischer Vorlesnngen and his Umriss der Allgemeinen P'dda- 
gogik. 

"The object of the book is to answer a question which many stu- 
dents of education are now asking: Who is Herbart? and what did 
he and his followers teach ? It answers this question better than any 
other account of the Herbartian method hitherto published in Eng- 
lish. 1 ' — From Mr. Brownings Introduction. 

Child Observations. 

By the Students of the State Normal School, Worcester, Mass. 
First Series: Imitation and Allied Activities. With an Introduction by 
Principal E. H. Russell. Cloth. 300 pages. Retail price, #1.50. 

THIS is believed to be by far the largest collection of facts of child- 
life ever given to the public. It exhibits, by more than twelve 
hundred instances carefully observed and succinctly recorded, the 
operation of the faculty or instinct of imitation in children, covering 
the period between the first and fifteenth years of life. The records 
are arranged progressively in groups according to the ages of the chil- 
dren observed, and show in an interesting way, by concrete examples, 
the growth and development of this fundamental activity of childhood 
from year to year. 

Psychologists, teachers, parents, and all students and lovers of chil- 
dren, will find here a rich store of material for their study and enter- 
tainment. 



L24 



EDUCATION. 



Compayre s History of Pedagogy. 

Translated and Edited by W. H. Payne, Chancellor of the University of Nash* 
ville and President of the Peabody Normal College; with Introduction, Notes, 
References, and an Index. Cloth. 618 pages. Retail price, #1.75. Special 
price for class use. 

IN one volume of moderate size the reader will find an interesting^ 
instructive, and comprehensive account of all the greater move- 
ments in the history of human thought as it bears on education. The 
great need of the teacher is breadth of view, and an adequate survey 
of the whole field of educational activity, and these wholesome and 
necessary endowments can come only from a study of the history of 
education. For this high purpose it is safe to say that there is no 
other book in any language which has the excellences of Compayr^'s 
History of Pedagogy. 



W. T. Harris, U. S. Coni>r of Edu- 
cation, Washington ; It is indispensable 
among histories of education. 

G. Stanley Hall, Pres. of Clark 
Univ., Worcester, Mass. : It is the best 
and most comprehensive universal history 
of education in English. The translator 
has added valuable notes. 

Irwin Shepard, Pres. of State Nor- 
mal School, Winona, Minn. : We adopted 
immediately upon its publication, and are 
now using it with great satisfaction in a 
class of sixty members. Through the aid 
of this book, the subject has assumed a 
new interest and importance to all our 
teachers and students. 

Gabriel Campayre, Chambres des 
Deputes, Paris: Votre traduction me 
oarait excellente et je vous remercie des 
soins que vous y avez mis. J'ai grand 
olaisir a me relire dans votre langue, 
d'autant que vous n'avez rien n6glige 
pour l'impression matenelle. 

J. W. Stearns, Prof, of the Science 
and Art of Teaching, Univ. of Wis. : It 
will, I believe, serve to increase interest in 
the history of educational thought and ex- 
perience,— an end greatly to be desired. 



M. A. Newell, late Supt. of Educa- 
tion, Baltimore, Md.: It is a very valuable 
addition to our pedagogic literature ; it is 
as brief as the breadth of the subject would 
allow, and is comprehensive and philo- 
sophical. The notes and index added by 
Professor Payne very much increase the 
value of the work. 

E. H. Russell, Prin. of State Normal 
School, Worcester, Mass.: I say unhesi- 
tatingly that it is a very valuable edition 
to the list of first-rate books for teachers 
I have put it into the hands of our senior 
class, and have recommended it to our 
graduates. 

N. M. Butler, Professor of Philoso- 
phy, Columbia Coll., N. Y. : It should be in 
the hands of every teacher, every normal- 
school student, and on the list of every 
" reading circle." I predict for the book 
the greatest success, for it deserves it. 

E. E. Higbee, late State Supt. of Pub- 
lic Instruction, Narrisburg, Penn. : I 
hope it may be introduced into all the nor- 
mal schools of this State, and give a dig- 
nified impetus to studies of such character 
so much needed and so valuable. 



EDUCATION. 



125 



Compayre' s Lectures on Pedagogy. 

Translated and Edited by W. H. Payne, Chancellor of the University of Nash 
ville and President of the Peabody Normal College. Cloth. 500 pages. Retail 
price, #1.75. Special price for class use. 

THIS is a companion volume to the author's History of Peda- 
gogy and is characterized by the qualities that are so conspic- 
uous in the earlier volume ; it is comprehensive, clear, accurate, and 
is written with rare critical insight. To have an original and superior 
mind elaborate a systematic theory of education out of the best his- 
toric material accessible, and present as its complement a revised 
series of methods, would be thought an invaluable service to the 
teaching profession, but this is precisely what M. Compayre has 
done in this charming volume. It is the most original and satisfac- 
tory manual for teachers that has ever appeared in English. 



Jas. MacAlister, Pres. of Drexel 
Inst,, Philadelphia, Pa. : I have known 
the book ever since it appeared, and re- 
gard it as the best work in existence on 
the Theory and Practice of Education. 

Thomas J. Morgan, recently Prin. 
State Normal School, Providence, R. I. : 
It seems to me the best book on the sub- 
ject which has yet been published in 
America. 

H. B. Twitmeyer, Coll. of Northern 
III., Dakota, III. : It is the best resume I 
have ever seen on the study and practice 
of teaching. 

Richard Edwards, Ex-Supt. Public 
Instruction, Springfield, III. : I value the 



book very highly indeed, and think it will 
have great effect in uplifting the profes- 
sion of teachers in this country. 

W. W. Parsons, Pres. Ind. StaU 
Normal School : I pronounce it an excel- 
lent popular treatise on the Science of 
Education. I consider it a valuable addi- 
tion to our professional literature. 

Christian Union ; Especially in- 
genious is the chapter upon the education 
of the attention ; that, too, upon the cul- 
ture of the memory is of great practical 
value. We should like to put this work 
into the hands of every instructor, whether 
parent or teacher. 



Psychology Applied to Education. 

By Gabriel Compayre. Translated by Wm. H. Payne, Chancellor of the 
University of Nashville. Cloth. 225 pages. Retail price, 90 cents. 

IN the statement of doctrine and application, this manual is profound 
without being obscure, and simple without being commonplace. 
There are thousands of teachers who have neither the taste nor the 
leisure to master the details of educational science, nor even to read the 
profounder treatises, but who are anxious to find a rational basis for 
their art ; for such there is no book that can be commended so highly. 



i 4 o EDUCATION. 



The Early Training of Children. 

By Mrs. Frank Malleson, England. Cloth. 127 pages. Retail price, 75 
oents. 

AN invaluable guide to mothers, to kindergartners and to primary 
teachers. The topics treated are: Infant Life; Nursery 
Management; The Employment and Occupation of Children; Train- 
ing in Reverence, in Truth, in Obedience, and in the other Cardinal 
Virtues; and finally, the best system of Rewards and Punishments. 
And every suggestion is practical. Every line tells. No question is 
treated without a full recognition of the difficulties involved, and no 
measure recommended which has not stood the test of actual trial, 
and is not based on sound educational principles. No one can read 
the book without sharing the author's earnestness and faith. 

With these " Notes," and Miss Peabody's Lectures to Kindergart- 
ners, the most inexperienced mother or teacher may be "doubly 
armed." 

Comenius s The School of Infancy. 

An essay on the education of youth during the first six years. Edited, with an 
introduction, notes, and a bibliography of the Comenian literature, by Will S. 
Monroe. Cloth. 116 pages. Portrait. Retail price, $1. 00. 

THE celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of 
Comenius has given great impetus to his fame. A man who 
could decline the presidency of Harvard College, who was invited 
by Parliament to visit England and remodel her schools, and whose 
advice was sought by several Continental powers, is entitled to a hear- 
ing even in these days. Thus far his " School of Infancy," which is in 
some respects his greatest book, and is at least the most practical and 
modern in spirit, has been but little known. In it he advocates sense- 
training, anticipates modern child-study and the kindergarten, cham- 
pions nature-study and naturalness in method, provides for systematic 
physical training, and declares that education is a universal right, that 
knowledge should be fitted to action, and that the school should pre- 
pare for life. The genial Quick says of it : " ' The School of Infancy 1 
has not had anything like the circulation it deserves. 1 ' The book 
contains a portrait of Comenius, an introduction, notes, and full bibliog- 
raphy of the Comenian literature ; and at the end of each chapter 
cross-references to the standard literature of primary education. 



EDUCATION. 139 



The Student's FroebeL 

By William H. Herford, late member of the Universities of Bonn, Berlin, 
and Zurich. Cloth. 128 pages. Retail price, 75 cents. 

THE purpose of this little book, as stated by the editor in his preface, 
is to give young people, who are seriously preparing themselves 
to become teachers, a brief yet full account of FroebePs Theory of 
Education ; his practice or plans of method is reserved for a second 
part. This book is adapted from Froebers Education of Humanity 
(Die Erziehung der Menschheit}, published in 1826. The editor has 
tried to give what is FroebePs own in English as close as possible to 
the very words of his author. The book, in addition to an Introduc- 
tion treating of the subject in general, has chapters on The Nursling, 
The Child, The Boy, and The School, and summaries of the teachings. 



The Psychology of Childhood. 



By Frederick Tracy, Lecturer in Philosophy in the University of Toronto, 
with Introduction by President G. Stanley Hall of Clark University. Cloth. 
183 pages. Retail price, 90 cents. 

THE author has in this work undertaken to present as concisely, yet 
as completely, as possible, the results of the systematic study of 
children, and has included everything of importance that can be found. 
Some of its special features are thus summarized : — ( 1 ) It is the first 
general treatise, covering the whole field of child psychology. (2) It 
aims to contain a complete summary, up to date, of all work done in 
this field. (3) The work contains a large amount of material, the re- 
sults of the author's own observations on children as well as those of 
perhaps a score of very reliable observers. (4) The subject of child- 
language has been gone into with especial thoroughness, from an en- 
tirely new and original standpoint, and with very gratifying results. 
(5) A very exhaustive bibliography, containing, it is believed, every- 
thing of value that has ever been written on this subject, is appended. 

J. Clark Murray, Prof, of Philo- 
sophy, McGill University, Montreal, Ca- 
nada: In English we have certainly no 



original work on the psychology of child 
hood to compare with it, and even among 
translations from German and French there 
is none which shows such a mastery of the 
whole subject. 



Earl Barnes, Department of Edu- 
cation, Leland Stanford fr. University, 
Cal. : No book has come from the press 
during the past year which I have been 
so glad to see as this one. For all of us 
who are carrying on courses in the psychol- 
ogy of children it will prove an invaluable 
aid. 



Elementary Science. 



Bailey'S Grammar SChOOl PhysiCS. A series of inductive lessons in the elements 

of the science. Illustrated. 60 cts. 

Ballard's The World Of Matter. A guide to the study of chemistry and mineralogy; 
adapted to the general reader, for use as a text-book or as a guide to the teacher in giving 
object-lessons. 264 pages. Illustrated. $1.00. 

Clark's Practical Methods in Microscopy. Gives in detail descriptions of methods 

that will lead the careful worker to successful results. 233 pages. Illustrated. $1.60. 

Clarke's Astronomical Lantern. Intended to familiarize students with the constella- 
tions by comparing them with fac-similes on the lantern face. With seventeen slides, 
giving twenty-two constellations. #4,50. 

Clarke's HOW tO find the Stars. Accompanies the above and helps to an acquaintance 
with the constellations. 47 pages. Paper. 15 cts. 

Guides for Science Teaching. Teachers' aids in the instruction of Natural History 
classes in the lower grades. 

I. Hyatt's About Pebbles. 26 pages. Paper. 10 cts. 
II. Goodale's A Few Common Plants. 61 pages. Paper. 20 cts. 

III. Hyatt's Commercial and other Sponges. Illustrated. 43 pages. Paper. 20 cts. 

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25 cts. 
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VI. Hyatt's Mollusca. Illustrated. 65 pages. Paper. 30 cts. 
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VIII. Hyatt's Insecta. Illustrated. 324 pages. Cloth. $1.25. 
XII. Crosby's Common Minerals and Rocks. Illustrated. 200 pages. Paper, 40 
cts. Cloth, 60 cts. 

XIII. Richard's First Lessons in Minerals. 50 pages. Paper. 10 cts. 

XIV. Bowditch's Physiology. 58 pages. Paper. 20 cts. 

XV. Clapp's 36 Observation Lessons in Minerals. 80 pages. Paper. 30 cts. 
XVI. Phenix's Lessons in Chemistry. 20 cts. 
Pupils' Note-Book to accompany No. 15. 10 cts. 

Sice's Science Teaching in the School. With a course of instruction in science 
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Ricks'S Natural History Object LeSSOnS. Supplies information on plants and 
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Ricks's Object Lessons and How to Give them. 

Volume I. Gives lessons for primary grades. 200 pages. 90 cts. 

Volume II. Gives lessons for grammar and intermediate grades. 212 pages. 90 cts. 

Shaler'S First Book in Geology. For high school, or highest class in grammar school. 

272 pages. Illustrated. $1.00. 

Shaler's Teacher's Methods in Geology. An aid to the teacher of Geology. 

74 pages. Paper. 25 cts. 

Smith's Studies in Nature. A combination of natural history lessons and language 
work. 48 pages. Paper. 1 5 cts. 

Sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price. See also our list of books in Science, 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 



SCIENCE. 

Shaler*S First Book in Geology. For high school, or highest class in grammar 
school. $1.10. Bound in boards for supplementary reader. 70 cts. 

Ballard'S World Of Matter. A Guide to Mineralogy and Chemistry. $1.00. 

Shepard's Inorganic Chemistry. Descriptive and Qualitative; experimental and 
inductive; leads the student to observe and think. For high schools and colleges. $1.2;,. 

Shepard's Briefer Course in Chemistry ; with Chapter on Organic 

Chemistry. Designed for schools giving a half year or less to the subject, and schooL 
limited in laboratory facilities. 90 cts. 

Shepard's Organic Chemistry. The portion on organic chemistry in Shepard's 
Briefer Course is bound in paper separately. Paper. 30 cts. 

Shepard's Laboratory Note-Book. Blanks for experiments; tables for there- 
actions of metallic salts. Can be used with any chemistry. Boards. 40 cts. 

Benton's Guide to General Chemistry, a manual for the laboratory. 4 octs. 

Remsen's Organic Chemistry. An Introduction to the Study of the Compounds 
of Carbon. For students of the pure science, or its application to arts. $1.30. 

OmdOrff's Laboratory Manual. Containing directions for a course of experiments 
in Organic Chemistry, arranged to accompany Remsen's Chemistry. Boards. 40 cts. 

Coit's Chemical Arithmetic. With a short system of Elementary Qualitative 
Analysis. For high schools and colleges 60 cts. 

Grabfield and Burns' Chemical Problems. For preparatory schools. 60 cts. 

Chute's Practical Physics. A laboratory book for high schools and colleges study- 
ing physics experimentally. Gives free details for laboratory work. $1.25. 

ColtOn's Practical Zoology. Gives a clear idea of the subject as a whole, by the 
careful study of a few typical animals. 90 cts. 

Boyer's Laboratory Manual in Elementary Biology, a guide to the 

study of animals and plants, and is so constructed as to be of no help to the pupil unless 
he actually studies the specimens. 

Clark's Methods in MicrOSCOpy. This book gives in detail descriptions of methods 
that will lead any careful worker to successful results in microscopic manipulation. $1.60. 

Spalding's Introduction tO Botany. Practical Exercises in the Study of Plants 
by the laboratory method. 90 cts. 

Whiting's Physical Measurement. Intended for students in Civil, Mechani- 
cal and Electrical Engineering, Surveying, Astronomical Work, Chemical Analysis, Phys- 
ical Investigation, and other branches in which accurate measurements are required. 
I. Fifty measurements in Density, Heat, Light, and Sound. $1.30. _ 
II. Fifty measurements in Sound, Dynamics, Magnetism, Electricity. $1.30. 
III. Principles and Methods of Physical Measurement, Physical Laws and Princi- 
ples, and Mathematical and Physical Tables. $1.30. 
IV. Appendix for the use of Teachers, including examples of observation and re- 
duction. Part IV is needed by students only when working without a teacher. 
Jr. 30. 

Parts I— III, in one vol., $3.25. Parts I-IV, in one vol., $4.00. 

Williams's Modern Petrography. An account of the application of the micro- 
scope to the study of geology. Paper. 25 cts. 

For elementary works see our list of books in Elementary Science. 



D. C. HEATH & CO , PUBLISHERS. 

BOSTON. NEW VOUK CHICAGO. 



ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 



Hyde'S Lessons in English, Book I. For the lower grades. Contains exercises 
for reproduction, picture lessons, letter writing, uses of parts of speech, etc. 40 cts. 

Hyde'S Lessons in English, BOOk II. For Grammar schools. Has enough tech- 
nical grammar for correct use of language. 60 cts. 

Hyde's Lessons in English, Book II with Supplement. Has, in addition 

to the above, 118 pages of technical grammar. 70 cts. 
Supplement bound alone, 35 cts. 

Hyde's Practical English Grammar. For advanced classes in grammar schools 

and for high schools. 60 cts. 

Hyde's Lessons in English, Book II with Practical Grammar. The 

Practical Grammar and Book II bound together. 80 cts. 

Hyde's Derivation of Words. 15 cts. 

Penniman's Common Words Difficult to Spell. Graded lists of common words 

often misspelled. Boards. 25 cts. 

Penniman's Prose Dictation Exercises. Short extracts from the best authors. 

Boards. 30 cts. 

Spalding's Problem of Elementary Composition. Suggestions for its solution. 

Cloth. 45 cts. 

Mathews's Outline of English Grammar, with Selections for Practice. 

The application of principles is made through composition of original sentences. 80 cts. 
Buckbee's Primary Word BOOk. Embraces thorough drills in articulation and in 
the primary difficulties of spelling and sound. 30 cts. 

Sever'S Progressive Speller. For use in advanced primary, intermediate, and gram. 
mar grades. Gives spelling, pronunciation, definition, and use of words. 30 cts. 

Badlam's Suggestive Lessons in Language. Being Part I and Appendix of 

Suggestive Lessons in Language and Reading. 50 cts. 

Smith's Studies in Nature, and Language Lessons, a combination of object 

lessons with language work. 50 cts. Part I bound separately, 25 cts. 

MeiklejOhn'S English Language. Treats salient features with a master's skill and 
with the utmost clearness and simplicity. $1.30. 

MeiklejOhn'S English Grammar. Also composition, versification, paraphrasing, etc. 

For high schools and colleges. 90 cts. 

Meiklejohn's History of the English Language. 7 8 pages. Part in of Eng- 
lish Language above, 35 cts. 

Williams's Composition and Rhetoric by Practice. For high school and col- 

lege. Combines the smallest amount of theory with an abundance of practice. Revised 
edition. $1.00. 

Strang's Exercises in English. Examples in Syntax, Accidence, and Style for 

criticism and correction. 50 cts. 
HuffCUtt's English in the Preparatory School. Presents advanced methods 

of teaching English grammar and compositon in the secondary schools. 25 cts. 
Woodward's Study Of English. From primary school to college. 25 cts. 
Genung'S Study Of Rhetoric. Shows the most practical discipline. 25 cts. 
See also our list of books for the study of English Literature. 



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ENGLISH LITERATURE. 

The Arden Shakespeare. The greater plays in their literary aspect, each with intro- 
duction, interpretative notes, glossary, and essay on metre. 45 cts. 

Moulton's Literary Study Of the Bible. An account of the leading forms of 
literature represented, without reference to theological matters. $2.00. 

Moulton's Four Years of Novel-Reading, a reader's guide. 50 cts. 
Hawthorne and Lemmon's American Literature. A manual for high scheols 

and academies. $1.25. 

Meiklejohn's History of English Language and Literature. For high schools 

and colleges. A compact and reliable statement of the essentials. 90 cts. 

Hodgkins' Studies in English Literature. Gives full lists of aids for laboratory 

method. Scott, Lamb, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Macaulay> 
Dickens, Thackeray, Robert Browning, Mrs. Browning, Carlyle, George Eliot, Tenny- 
son, Rossetti, Arnold, Ruskin, Irving, Bryant, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Emerson, 
Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell. A separate pamphlet on each author. Price 5 cts. each, 
or per hundred, $3.00 ; complete in cloth $1.00. 

Scudder's Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. With introduction and copious 

notes. 70 cts. 

George's Wordsworth's Prelude. Annotated for high school and college. Never 
before published alone. #1.25. 

George's Selections from Wordsworth. 168 poems chosen with a view to illustrate 

the growth of the poet's mind and art. $1.50. 

George's Wordsworth's Prefaces and Essays on Poetry. Contains the best of 

Wordsworth's prose. 60 cts. 
George's Webster's Speeches. Nine select speeches with notes. $1.50. 

George's Burke's American Orations. Cloth. 65 cts. 

George's Select Poems Of Burns. 1 18 poems, with introduction, notes and gloss- 
ary. $1.00. 

George's Tennyson's Princess. With introduction and notes. 45 cts. 

Corson's Introduction tO Browning. A guide to the study of Browning's Poetry. 

Also has 33 poems with notes. $1.50. 

Corson's Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare. A critical study of 

Shakespeare's art, with examination questions. $1.50. 

COOk'S Judith. The Old English epic poem, with introduction, translation, glossary and 
fac-simile page. $1.60. Students' edition without translation. 35 cts. 

COOk'S The Bible and English Prose Style. Approaches the study of the Bible 
from the literary side. 60 cts. 

Simonds' Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Poems. 168 pages. With biography, and 

critical analysis of his poems. 75 cts. 

Hall's BeOWUlf. A metrical translation. $1.00. Students' edition. 35 cts. 

Norton's Heart Of Oak BOOks. A series of six volumes giving selections from the 
choicest English literature. 

See also our list 0/ books for the study of the English Language. 



D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS. 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 



Heath's Pedagogical Library 



i. 

ii. 
in. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 
X. 

XL 

XII. 
XIII. 

XIV. 
XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 
XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 
XXII. 

XXIII. 
XXIV. 
XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 
XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 
XXXIII. 



Compayre's History of Pedagogy. " The best and most comprehensive his- 
tory of Education in English." — Dr. G. S. Hall $1.75. 

Compayre's Lectures on Teaching. " The best book in existence on theory 
and practice." — Pres. MacAlister, Drexel Institute. $1.75. 

Compayre's Psychology Applied to Education. 90 cts. 

ROUSSeau'S Emile. " Perhaps the most influential book ever written on the 
subject of education." — R. H. Quick. 90 cts. ; paper, 25 cts. 

Peabody's Lectures to Kindergartners. Illustrated. $1.00. 

Pestalozzi's Leonard and Gertrude. Illustrated. 90 cts. ; paper, 25 cts. 

Radestock's Habit in Education. 75 cts. 

Rosmini'S Method in Education. "The most important pedagogical work 
ever written." — Thomas Davidson. $1.50. 

Hall's Bibliography Of Education. Covers every department. $1.50. 

Gill's Systems of Education. $1.25. 

De Garmo's Essentials of Method. A practical exposition of methods with 
illustrative outlines of common school studies. 65 cts. 

Malleson's Early Training of Children. 75 cts.; paper, 25 cts. 

Hall's Methods Of Teaching History. A collection of papers by leading edu- 
cators. $1.50. 

Newsholme's School Hygiene. 75 cts. ; paper, 25 cts. 

De Garmo's Lindner's Psychology. The best manual ever prepared from the 
Herbartian standpoint. $1.00. 

Lange'S Apperception. The most popular monograph on psychology and 
pedagogy that has as yet appeared. $r.oo. 

Methods of Teaching Modern Languages. 90 cts. 

Felkin's Herbart's Introduction to the Science and Practice of Education. 
With an introduction by Oscar Browning. $1.00. 

Herbart's Science Of Education. Includes a translation of the Allgemeine 
P'ddagogik. $1.00. 

Herford's Student's Froebel. 75 cts. 

Sanford's Laboratory Course in Physiological Psychology. 90 cts. 

Tracy's Psychology of Childhood. The first treatise covering in a scientific 
manner the whole field of child psychology. 90 cts. 

Ufer's Introduction to the Pedagogy of Herbart. 90 cts. 

Munroe's Educational Ideal. A brief history of education. $1.00. 

Lukens's The Connection between Thought and Memory. Based on 
Dorpfeld's Denken und Ged'dchtnis. $1.00. 

English in American Universities. Papers by professors in twenty represen- 
tative institutions. $1.00. 

Comenius's The School of Infancy. $1.00. 

Russell's Child Observations. First Series: Imitation and Allied Activities. 
$1.50. 

Lefevre's Number and its Algebra. $1.25. 

Sheldon-Barnes's Studies in Historical Method. Method as determined by 
the nature of history and the aim of its study. 90 cts. 

Adams's The Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education. A series of es- 
says in touch with present needs. $1.00. 

Roger Ascham's The Scholemaster. $1.25. 

Thompson's Day Dreams of a Schoolmaster. $1.25. 

Richter's Levana; or, The Doctrine of Education. "A spirited and 
scholarly book." — Prof. W. H. Payne. $1.40. 



Sent by mail, postpaid, on receipt of price. 



D.C. HEATH & CO., Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago 



fr}.*£h\' 



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